The Day Axie Infinity’s $625M Lesson Hit Home
Axie Infinity’s $625M exploit wasn’t just a headline—it was a gut punch. I still remember where I was when I heard the news. I had just spoken to a smart contract engineer who’d turned down an offer from Sky Mavis two weeks prior. Not because of the tech (which was solid) or the project (which was booming), but because of a weird gut feeling about their internal ops.
We’ve all seen hacks before, but this one? It hit differently.
This was the Ronin Bridge breach in March 2022—a hack that siphoned off over half a billion dollars from one of the most promising play-to-earn ecosystems. Axie Infinity’s $625M loss wasn’t just financial; it was reputational. It changed the way candidates asked questions in interviews. It made founders rethink their DevSecOps hiring. And for those of us in the trenches of crypto recruitment, it was a turning point.
Let’s talk about what this breach actually taught us.
Security Can’t Be an Afterthought
Before Axie Infinity’s $625M headline exploded, security in many Web3 teams was a checkbox. Get your audits, slap a badge on your landing page, and move on. But here’s the thing: security isn’t just about audits. It’s about culture.
I’ve worked with startups that think hiring one auditor means they’re “covered.” The reality? No audit firm in the world can protect a protocol if the core infrastructure is flawed or rushed.
Sky Mavis relied on just nine validator nodes. The attacker only needed to compromise five to take control of the network. That’s not just a vulnerability—it’s a single point of failure dressed up in decentralised clothing.
Since then, I’ve seen a clear trend: candidates—especially senior engineers—now ask detailed questions about validator distribution, bug bounty programmes, and incident response plans. And smart founders welcome those questions.
Hiring for Security Isn’t Just About Experience
After Axie Infinity’s $625M disaster, security hires became a hot topic. Suddenly, every protocol wanted a Head of Security. But here’s the trap: hiring someone with “years of experience” in Web2 security doesn’t guarantee they’ll succeed in a blockchain environment.
One of the best security engineers I placed last year had zero traditional security certs. What he did have was years of tinkering with DeFi protocols, participating in CTFs (Capture the Flag challenges), and white-hat disclosures. He understood composability risks, reentrancy attacks, flash loans—all the weird stuff unique to this space.
When teams hire for blockchain security, they need to think beyond LinkedIn checkboxes. Passion, community involvement, and onchain intuition often matter more than the CV. Axie Infinity’s $625M lesson drove that point home, loud and clear.
Bridges Are the New Honey Pots
Axie Infinity’s $625M breach happened through the Ronin Bridge—a cross-chain solution meant to move assets between Ethereum and Axie’s sidechain. But bridges are notorious attack vectors. Why? Because they’re complex, often centralised, and sit between ecosystems with very different assumptions.
After the breach, several other bridges followed suit: Wormhole ($326M), Harmony Horizon ($100M+), and Nomad ($190M). You’d think we’d have learned by now.
What I’ve noticed post-Axie is that candidates—especially those considering L1 or infra projects—are hyper-aware of bridge risk. If a project runs its own bridge, devs want to know: who manages the validators? How often is it monitored? What failsafes are in place?
From a recruitment lens, the projects that answer those questions clearly are winning top talent. The ones that say, “We’ll sort that out after launch”? They’re bleeding candidates.
Aftermath Hiring Is Tough—But It Doesn’t Have to Be
Here’s a harsh reality I’ve seen up close: when a protocol suffers a breach—even a high-profile one like Axie Infinity’s $625M mess—it suddenly becomes a much harder sell to top-tier candidates.
No one wants to be the next fire-fighter engineer cleaning up someone else’s security debt. I remember helping a well-known DeFi team rebuild post-exploit. We had to reframe the opportunity: not as a “clean-up” gig, but as a chance to rebuild a protocol from scratch, this time the right way.
And it worked. But only because the leadership owned their mistakes, communicated transparently, and showed a real commitment to change. Axie Infinity did eventually bring in help, refunded users, and rebuilt parts of their stack. But the trust cost was massive.
Today, when a client has been hit, I tell them: don’t hide it—own it. The right candidates will appreciate the honesty, and the wrong ones would have left later anyway.
If there’s one thing Axie Infinity’s $625M breach taught me, it’s that security isn’t something you hire for once. It’s something you build into your team DNA. From day one. Not when it’s too late.
Founders in Web3 don’t get second chances easily. But they do get the chance to learn from the mistakes of others. The teams that win today? They’re proactive. They over-communicate. They involve their engineers in risk planning. And they treat security engineers not as gatekeepers, but as partners.
And as for those of us in crypto recruitment—we’re doing more than just filling roles. We’re guiding teams through cultural shifts, helping them prioritise trust, and yes, sometimes reminding them of the very expensive mistakes of the past.
Because no one wants to be next year’s Axie Infinity’s $625M headline.
