For one more yr, hackers stole billions of {dollars} in crypto. However for the primary time since 2020, the development is downwards, in line with crypto safety corporations.
This yr, hackers stole round $2 billion {dollars} in crypto throughout dozens of cyberattacks and thefts, in line with De.FI, the web3 safety agency that runs the REKT database. The positioning ranks the worst-ever crypto hacks, from the breach of the Ronin network in 2022, the place hackers stole greater than $600 million in crypto in what stands as the biggest incident in historical past, to the hack in opposition to Mixin Community this yr, which netted the hackers around $200 million.
“This amount, though dispersed across various incidents, underscores the persistent vulnerabilities and challenges within the DeFi ecosystem,” De.Fi wrote in its report, which the agency shared with TechCrunch. “2023 stood as a testament to both the ongoing vulnerabilities and the strides made in addressing them, even as interest in the space was relatively muted by the ongoing bear market in the first half of the year.”
Earlier in December, blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs additionally released an estimate of the amount of crypto stolen by hackers this yr. In accordance with the corporate, the full as of mid-December stood at about $1.7 billion.
Among the many different worst crypto thefts of the yr embody the hack in opposition to Euler Finance, in which hackers stole almost $200 million; in addition to main hacks in opposition to Multichain ($126 million), BonqDAO ($120 million), Poloniex ($114 million) and Atomic Pockets ($100 million), amongst a whole lot of others.
Final yr, blockchain monitoring agency Chainalysis reported that cybercriminals had stolen an all-time record of around $3.8 billion in crypto. Of these, $1.7 billion had been stolen by North Korean authorities hackers often known as Lazarus Group, one of the most prolific groups of crypto thieves, as a part of an effort to fund the regime’s sanctioned nuclear weapons program.
“It isn’t a stretch to say that cryptocurrency hacking is a sizable chunk of the nation’s economy,” Chainalysis stated in its report final yr.
The yr earlier than, hackers stole $3.3 billion in 2021, according to Chainalysis,
It’s unimaginable to foretell what’s going to occur in 2024. However given the poor safety carried out by many crypto and web3 initiatives and the sheer quantity of financial worth they maintain as discussed earlier this year at TechCrunch Disrupt, we will count on hackers to proceed concentrating on the rising trade.
Correction: Amended attribution to the REKT Database within the second paragraph.
