In the cryptocurrency market, significant developments are happening with Bitcoin and Ethereum, while security issues in the blockchain field continue. According to Gala Games’ CEO, a hacker managed to steal and sell GALA tokens worth $23 million in a recent smart contract security incident, attributing the issue to poor internal controls.
What Is Happening at GALA?
On May 20 at 22:32, blockchain observers reported that 5 billion GALA worth at least $200 million were minted, but the wallet responsible sold the tokens in batches and succeeded in selling them.
Reports on the settlement saw GALA drop to a 24-hour low of $0.038, representing a 20% decrease from the daily high just an hour earlier. According to CoinGecko data, it has since slightly recovered to $0.041. Gala Games co-founder and CEO Eric Schiermeyer wrote in a May 20 X post:
“We experienced an incident resulting in the unauthorized sale of 600 million GALA tokens and the effective burning of 4.4 billion tokens. We disrupted our internal controls, this should not have happened, and we are taking necessary steps to ensure it does not happen again.”
Schiermeyer stated that Gala detected the settlement and removed unauthorized access to the GALA contract. He also added that the Ethereum contract was secure and never compromised. Schiermeyer wrote that Gala believes the responsible person’s identity has been identified and is working with a network of the FBI, the US Department of Justice, and international authorities.
What Are the Details of the Process?
Gala Games added in an X post that the security incident involving the GALA token was contained and the affected wallet was frozen. Gala and Schiermeyer did not disclose who was responsible for the incident or how the person gained access to the GALA contract.
In August, Schiermeyer and co-founder Wright Thurston filed lawsuits against each other on behalf of Gala Games. Thurston claimed that Schiermeyer caused the sale and waste of millions of dollars of Gala’s company assets, while Schiermeyer accused Thurston of stealing GALA worth $130 million.
