Gala Games suffers $200m security incident over ‘internal controls’
Blockchain gaming platform Gala Games has seemingly suffered a security breach, resulting in the loss of more than 4 billion GALA tokens.
Gala Games, a blockchain gaming startup that Zynga co-founder Eric Schiermeyer helped create, suffered a multi-million dollar “security incident” involving GALA tokens, the firm said in an X post on May 21.
According to the announcement, the impacted wallet “has been frozen,” although it’s not clear exactly what was the root cause of the breach.
“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 Games
In another X post on May 21, Gala Games CEO Eric Schiermeyer revealed that an unknown individual minted 5 billion GALA tokens worth $200 million on May 20, and succeeded in selling around 600 million GALA tokens. Schiermeyer reassured users that the Gala Games team within 45 minutes “secured and removed unauthorized access to the GALA contract.”
“We messed up our internal controls…This shouldn’t have happened and we are taking steps to ensure it doesn’t ever again […] There is the issue of our daily distribution…we will be having a node vote on how to handle this issue. As usual the community will decide how we proceed.”
Eric Schiermeyer
Following the news, the GALA token plunged in a moment down to $0.037, losing nearly 20% before jumping back to $0.042.
Founded in 2018 by Eric Schiermeyer, Wright Thurston, and Michael McCarthy, Gala Games is a blockchain-based gaming platform that emphasizes giving control back to the players. The company has raised a total of $5 million in funding thus far, primarily from investors including Block Wolves, Broslyn Capital, CaptureAlpha, DWF Labs, and Ignite Group, according to data from PitchBook.
