This is Planet money from NPR.
One of the biggest things in the world of crypto a couple years ago was this game called Axie Infinity.
You can think of it as like, blockchain Pokemon.
You buy these tiny little digital pet blobs with tiny little legs, and you fight them against other people's tiny pet.
Blobs, except every pet is also an NFT.
Basically, this digital beanie baby, and some of them were selling for thousands of dollars.
People have made this game their full time job.
You can even trade your axies for cryptocurrency on our marketplace.
A lot of Axies fans seemed convinced that the game was proof that crypto could be used to create an entire economic ecosystem.
The company behind Axie Infinity grew into a multi billion dollar business.
Then, in March of 2022, this candy colored paradise full of happy go lucky but also weirdly lucrative digital pets was the scene of a shocking crime.
A heist.
They were heisted.
It was a heist.
And that is where our story begins.
In the middle of the night, Aaron plant gets a phone call.
It was about 04:00 in the morning.
And you know when your phone is set to do not disturb, but when someone calls you repeatedly in such short increments of time, it will actually ring through.
That's what's happened.
Erin is essentially a private detective who specializes in hunting down stolen cryptocurrency.