Gala Games hit by $200 million in possible inside job

A smart contract from Web3 gaming protocol Gala Games was allegedly exploited on Monday, with the hacker minting 5 billion units of the token GALA, which roughly translates to $200 million.

Transaction that minted 5 billion units of GALA. Image: Etherscan

The user identified as Quit shared on X that the address responsible for the exploit is an address with admin clearance level, which means it can arbitrarily commit some actions involving the smart contract.

According to on-chain data, the exploited were able to swap nearly $21 million to Ethereum (ETH) before the ‘blocklist’ function of the contract was activated and he couldn‘t sell more GALA tokens. At the time of writing, the exploiter hadn’t moved the funds in ETH outside his wallet.

Moreover, scammers started emulating the Gala Games official X profile to advertise a fake token migration event, changing characters from the user handle. However, there isnt such an event, and users will likely lose their funds if they interact with the shared link.