Gala

Gala Games’ CEO says “messed up” internal controls were to blame for a recent smart contract “security incident” that saw a hacker manage to steal and sell $23 million worth of its GALA token.
Earlier on May 20 at 7:32 pm UTC, Blockchain <a href="https://x.com/0xQuit/status/1792672497957302686" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">watchers</a> <a href="https://x.com/devops199fan/status/1792660414544879665" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">reported</a> that 5 billion GALA worth at least $200 million (price at the time) was <a href="https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa6d90abe17d17743a9cecab84bcefb0fd0bbfa0c61bba60fd2f680b0a2f077fe" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">minted</a>, though the wallet responsible was selling the token&nbsp;in batches — managing to sell&nbsp;
Reports of the compromise saw GALA hit a 24-hour low of $0.038 — a 20% drop from its daily high just an hour earlier. It has since slightly recovered to $0.041, <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/gala" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">according</a> to CoinGecko.
“We had an incident that resulted in the unauthorized SALE of 600million [...] GALA tokens and the effective BURN of 4.4 billion tokens,” Gala Games co-founder and CEO Eric Schiermeyer wrote in a May 20 X <a href="https://x.com/Benefactor0101/status/1792698768166715776" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">post</a>.
“We messed up our internal controls,” he added. “This shouldn’t have happened, and we are taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
<figure><img src="https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2024-05/36faa3a3-c183-453e-8e6a-aac116dad960.png">
 <figcaption style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="https://x.com/Benefactor0101/status/1792698768166715776" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Eric Schiermeyer</a>
 </figcaption>
</figure>
Schiermeyer said Gala “identified the compromise” and removed “unauthorized access to the GALA contract.” Its Ethereum contract “is secure” and “was never compromised,” he added.
Gala believes it identified the person responsible and was <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-politicians-arent-opposed-crypto-defi-privacy-railgun-ethereum" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">working with the FBI</a>, the United States Justice Department and “a network of international authorities,” Schiermeyer wrote.
In an X <a href="https://x.com/GoGalaGames/status/1792727587460104377" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">post</a>, Gala Games added the “security incident involving the GALA token has been contained and the impacted wallet has been frozen.”
<figure><img src="https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2024-05/e0f6eace-b4e5-473a-af59-c91dec4e37a5.png">
 <figcaption style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="https://x.com/GoGalaGames/status/1792727587460104377" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Gala Games</a>
 </figcaption>
</figure>
Gala and Schiermeyer did not disclose who was responsible for the incident or how that person gained access to the GALA contract.
Gala Games did not respond to a request for comment.
Related: <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-bridge-xlink-hack-recovery" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Bitcoin bridge XLink resurrection underway post $10M hack</a>
In August, Schiermeyer and fellow co-founder Wright Thurston <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/gala-games-founders-sue-court-token-theft-corporate-waste" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">filed lawsuits against each other</a> on behalf of Gala Games.
Thurston claimed Schiermeyer caused Gala to “sell off and waste millions of dollars in company assets” and Schiermeyer claimed Thurston stole $130 million worth of a GALA.
Web3 Gamer: <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/could-ai-ruin-gaming-the-voice-sandbox-battle-duet-monsters-web3-gamer/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">How AI could ruin gaming, The Voice, addictive Axies game</a>

Gala Games CEO blames $23M exploit on ‘messed up’ internal controls

Cointelegraph

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