A recent hack on the GALA token that minted billions of extra tokens has caused a stir in the Gala community. But the Gala team responded quickly, drafting a proposal to upgrade their token contract and balance out the token supply. This proposal has already passed, and we should see the new token contract within the next couple of days.
I don’t think this was quite what Gala Games had in mind when they talk about May Mayhem! Earlier this week, someone with admin access to the GALA token contract managed to mint 5 billion fresh, new GALA tokens. They then sold a significant portion of those tokens before they were caught and their wallet shut down!
At the moment, it’s not entirely clear if this was an internal hack, or a vulnerabilitiy in the contract or company process.
This hack resulted in the minting of 5 billion (yes, billion) GALA tokens, of which approximately 600 million were sold netting a cool $20+ million for the hacker! But while 20 million sounds nice, Gala has already contacted the FBI, the DOJ, and other such authorities. So the hacker may not have long to enjoy their ill-gotten gains!
You can read the official announcement from Gala Games about the incident here.
Update: Apparently the ETH from the sold tokens was recovered and is now converted back into GALA tokens.
No Worries! All is Well!
As a fix for this issue, the Gala Games team proposed to upgrade their existing GALA token contract. This upgrade will not only make the contract more secure, but it will also include a burn of about 5 billion tokens (the same exact amount minted by the hacker), by sending them to a burn address.
The proposal was only open for 24 hours. It has already passed a vote among those who own Gala Games Founder Nodes. Implementation should occur within the next few days.
And though the hack was discovered quickly, the bleeding stopped, and a proposed solution already well on its way to being implemented, this incident does highlight some of the issues with what is still a very new and ever-changing landscape of blockchain technology. Not only are smart contract audits an important part of the space, but developers also need to make sure and provide adequate security against malicious actors with access to sensitive functions (such as minting new tokens!).
And this is not the first time Gala has run into issues with their token. They already had to create an entirely new token (Gala v2), due to internal disputes among the team. And though the value of the GALA token has already rebounded from this incident, a new bloody nose for Gala Games is not going to help the growth and adoption of their blockchain ecosystem.
But, they did respond quickly, and as far as the average user knows, nothing has really changed.
What is Gala Games?
Gala Games is a produce, developer, and blockchain ecosystem for web3 gaming. This includes in-house games, as well as partnerships with other developers. Their games include Spider Tanks, Mirandus, Superior, Town Star, and many others. They also purchased Ember Entertainment, a mobile gaming company, and have begun integrating NFTs into their existing portfolio of mobile games.
But Gala includes more than just games. They have launched projects for distributing Music and Film as NFTs! Gala Games also built their own blockchain. This chain is called GalaChain (formerly GYRI), and will be the future home for all Gala-related apps and games.
Gala is a strong proponent of distributed ecosystems. And so, to support that concept, they offer user-run server nodes for both their blockchain and for many of their game as well. And, of course, they have their own token GALA, which is available on both the Ethereum network and on GalaChian.
To learn more about Gala Games, follow them on Twitter, join their Discord, and visit their website.
