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The creator of the hugely popular Axie Infinity game, Sky Mavis, has announced that it has partnered with Google Cloud.
The partnership will help significantly tighten the Ronin blockchain’s security and allow it to scale securely and sustainably.
A Multi-Year Collaboration
On most occasions, protocols that are hacked are left severely crippled. However, some projects are able to analyze such incidents and put certain measures in place that ensure a repeat does not occur. One such company is Sky Mavis, the creator of the wildly popular game Axie Infinity, which has announced a partnership with Google Cloud to enhance the security of the Ronin blockchain. The partnership will also help the blockchain to scale sustainably and build a rewarding gaming experience.
The multi-year collaboration will see Google Cloud act as an independent validator for the Ronin blockchain. The validator pool will also include others such as DappRadar, Nansen, and Animoca Brands. Google Cloud will help monitor validator uptimes and contribute to the overall security of the Ronin network.
COO of Sky Mavis, Aleksander Larsen, released a statement, stating,
“Validators have the important duty of ensuring that transactions on Ronin are processed correctly. They also serve as crucial ecosystem partners and supervisors. Google Cloud, which sits at the intersection of being a recognized contributor to the developer community and having deep technical expertise in blockchain infrastructure and running validators, was naturally one of the top choices. Google Cloud has been our strategic cloud provider since 2020, so welcoming them now as Ronin’s latest and 18th validator is a big deal for us, especially as we push toward our initial goal of having 21 independent validators securing the network.”
Creating A More Secure Infrastructure
Co-founder and chief training officer of Sky Mavis, Viet Anh Ho, one of the primary reasons for the collaboration between Sky Mavis and Google Cloud is the latter’s capability of autoscaling and automated application deployment capabilities. He explained further, stating,
“These free up our engineers to break new ground and delight users with interrelated and immersive experiences — all without disrupting active gameplay.”
On the part of Google Cloud, Ruma Balasubramanian, an executive at Google, stated that the team will work with Sky Mavis to help the latter accelerate its roadmap and help to grow the Ronin network through a much more secure infrastructure. The team at Google Cloud also praised Axie Infinity’s play-to-earn concept and shed light on other potential possibilities that could emerge due to the collaboration.
The Ronin Hack
In March, Sky Mavis had announced that the Ronin Network, which supports Axie Infinity, was the subject of a crippling hack. As a result, hackers were able to steal 173,600 worth of ETH, worth around $594.6 million at the time, and a further $25.5 million. As a result, the total loss from the hack amounted to a staggering $620 million.
The Ronin blockchain operates using a Proof-of-Authority consensus mechanism, with validators selected based on their credibility. The selected validators are responsible for verifying, voting, and maintaining transaction records on the Ronin blockchain. Because of its emphasis on decentralization, new validators are proposed and then put up for a vote, with current requirements stating at least 70% of existing validators need to approve a proposal for new validators.
Earlier, Sky Mavis had set up a temporary backdoor to enable it to handle a larger number of transactions. This backdoor was the vulnerability that allowed the hackers to orchestrate their crippling hack of the Ronin Network.
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