Gala Games exploiter returns $21 million taken from the $200 million exploit

The wallet address associated with the Gala Games exploit appears to have partially returned funds. 

The digital wallet transferred out 5,913.2 ETH, valued at $22.5 million, on-chain data shows. This is similar to the amount of GALA tokens sold off immediately after the Monday exploit. The situation is developing and the Block contacted Gala Games for confirmation.

After falling to its low of $0.040 yesterday, GALA trades at $0.043 as of 11:48 a.m. ET (15:48 UTC). The Block's price page for the token shows that GALA fell 1.94% within the past day.

The Gala Games exploit

On Monday, an unknown entity minted 5 billion GALA tokens, worth over $200 million. Following the incident, the price of the platform's native token GALA fell 15%, The Block previously reported.

Gala Games co-founder Eric Schiermeyer, who goes by Benefactor online, noted that the exploiter sold 600 million GALA, worth around $21 million at the time, and burned the remaining 4.4 billion coins after. He added on the social media platform X that Gala Games secured and removed unauthorized access to the GALA contract within 45 minutes of the exploit, with the ETH for GALA remaining secure as it was under a multi-signature wallet.

"We messed up our internal controls," Schiermeyer said. "This shouldn't have happened and we are taking steps to ensure it doesn't ever again. We believe we have identified the culprit and we are currently working with the FBI, DOJ and a network of international authorities."

"There is the issue of our daily distribution" Schiermeyer added. "We will be having a node vote on how to handle this issue. As usual the community will decide how we proceed."

Gala Games also explained on social media that the impacted wallet had been frozen, saying, "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."