The native token of crypto gaming project Gala Games (GALA) fell sharply Monday amid fears of a major transfer of over $200 million worth of GALA tokens that traders feared was a hack, and then recovered after the company said the security incident had been "contained and the impacted wallet has been frozen."

On Monday, an unknown party minted 5 billion Gala tokens and proceeded to sell them on decentralized exchange Uniswap, according to blockchain explorers.

Gala Games representatives had not previously announced the activity nor did they offer a quick explanation in the project's Discord server, spurring fears that the mass mint and sell was a hack.

Eric Schiermeyer, Gala Games' CEO who also goes by the handle Benefactor, said in a post on X that the company "identified the compromise and within 45 minutes we secured and removed unauthorized access to the $GALA contract."

"It's important to note our ETH contract for $GALA is secure and under the protection of a multi-sig wallet. It was never compromised," he wrote. "It's important to note our ETH contract for $GALA is secure and under the protection of a multi-sig wallet. It was never compromised."

Schiermeyer said the company has been in touch with the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice, and a "network of international authorities."

GALA's price sank as low as $0.039 in the aftermath, down 19% from the day's high set just over an hour earlier. It has since recovered, and stabilized at $0.042, according to CoinGecko data.

UPDATE (May 21, 01:56 UTC): Updates story with a statement from Gala Games, Eric Schiermeyer. Updates price.