Gala Was Hacked of $200M, Here’s All That Happened

Gaming blockchain Gala suffered a hack late Monday, with the exploiter minting 5 billion GALA in an hour. However, the project’s dev team intervened and blocked the wallet used for the exploit from transferring the funds.

The project also released an X post early Tuesday, reassuring the community that it was handling the case amicably. The incident prompted the GALA token to grapple, falling sharply over 20% from $0.04805 before recovering after an X post by the project.

How It Started

The incident started late Monday when an unusual activity happened in the Gala ecosystem. The network abnormally minted 5 billion GALA in less than an hour.

On-chain data analyst Spot On Chain reported the issue, stating that the GALA minted was being transferred to a wallet address, Oxe2ca47112. In a calculated move, the hacker swiftly swapped 500 million GALA for 4.8 ETH ($21 million) and was still holding a staggering 4.5 billion GALA.

The token fell sharply when the news made the rounds, slicing 20% of its market value before the hack. GALA pumped from $0.04805 to as low as $0.03799 as holders supposedly pumped their bags following the attack.

Dev Team Freezes Wallet

Gala’s dev team quickly swung into action and blacklisted the wallet, but that was after the hacker had already moved $21 million worth of GALA out of the address. The action secured the remaining 4.5 billion GALA, reducing the hack’s impact on the project.

It is unclear how the hacker had access to mint the token; however, it is suspected that he had access to a wallet with admin access to the Gala Games smart contract. It has also yet to be ascertained whether the wallet was compromised or if an insider did the hack.

Gala Makes Official Statement

“The security incident involving the GALA token has been contained, and the impact wallet has been frozen. This was an isolated incident, the cause of which has been addressed, and we are working closely with law enforcement to investigate the individuals behind the breach,” Gala said in an official statement on X.

The statement spurred hope in the Gala Games community and consequently impacted its price. The token rebounded over 10% to trade above $0.042 before consolidating. At press time, GALA was trading at $0.04129, with a market cap of $1.7 billion.