By Elizabeth Howcroft
LONDON (Reuters) – Crypto exchange Binance is leading investors’ contribution to a bailout of victims of a $615 million digital coin theft, the company targeted in the heist said on Wednesday.
The Vietnam-based company Sky Mavis, which runs the game Axie Infinity, said last week it had been hit by one of the largest crypto heists on record.
Sky Mavis said it would reimburse the lost money to users through a combination of its own balance sheet funds and $150 million raised by investors including cryptocurrency exchange Binance and venture capital firm a16z.
“Sky Mavis is committed to reimbursing all of our users’ lost funds and implementing rigorous internal security measures to prevent future attacks,” said Trung Nguyen, CEO of Sky Mavis.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said “we strongly believe Sky Mavis will bring a lot of value and growth for the larger industry and we believe it’s necessary to support them as they work hard to resolve the recent incident.”
Binance and Sky Mavis did not put a figure on how much of the $150 million Binance would provide.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Mark Potter)
