- Hacking and fraud cost the cryptocurrency sector $572.7 million in Q2 of this year, according to web3 bug bounty platform Immunefi.
- The two most popular attacks, DMM Bitcoin and BtcTurk, caused losses of $305 million and $55 million, respectively.
In the second quarter of this year, there have been 72 events involving hacks and scams that have cost the cryptocurrency sector $572.7 million in losses. The web3 bug bounty and security services platform Immunefi provided the most recent report from which this information is derived.
The losses reflect a surge of 112% from Q2 2023, when hackers and fraudsters took $265.5 million, and a 70.3% increase from the $336.3 million worth of exploits in Q1. According to Immunefi data, over $900 million has been taken through fraud and hacking this year, a 24% increase over the same period last year.
DeFiLlama data indicates that web3 protocols hold about $100 billion of the overall value. Because of this, decentralized finance remains a prime target for hackers, as shown by Immunefi’s discovery of 100% of attacks in Q1. However, the main focus in Q2 was on centralized finance, which accounted for 70% ($401.4 million) of the quarter’s losses compared to DeFi’s 30% ($171.3 million).
The majority of the losses, $360 million, or 62.8% of the total, were incurred as a result of two escapades. A $305 million hack of the Japanese cryptocurrency trading website DMM Bitcoin was the worst incident. A $55 million theft occurred from the Turkish bitcoin exchange BtcTurk on June 23.
For the whole second quarter, May recorded the highest monthly losses at $358.5 million. Out of all the monies that were pilfered in Q2, $28.7 million (or 5%) were retrieved through four different exploits: Bloom, ALEX Lab, Gala Games, and YOLO Games.
The CEO and inventor of Immunefi, Mitchell Amador, stated that “this quarter highlights how infrastructure compromises can be the most devastating hacks in crypto, as a single compromise can lead to millions in damages.” This was illustrated in the current quarter, when losses rose mostly due to cyberattacks against CeFi infrastructure, surpassing DeFi despite a decrease in cyberattacks within that sector. To safeguard the ecosystem as a whole, decisive action is required.
Hacks outnumber fraud on the most targeted networks, which include Ethereum and BNB Chain
In Q2, hacking accounted for 98.5% ($564.2 million) of the total losses across 53 occurrences; fraud, scams, and rug pulls accounted for only 1.5% ($8.5 million) over 19 individual incidents.
Similar to Q1, Ethereum and BNB Chain were the most targeted networks once more. With 34 occurrences, or 46.6% of the losses on chains, Ethereum experienced the most individual attacks, followed by BNB Chain with 18 instances, or 24.7%. The remaining events included Arbitrum, Blast, Optimism, Solana, Polygon, Fantom, Linea, Mantle, and TON.
Immunefi paid out more than $100 million to researchers and ethical hackers earlier this month. The three-year awards are the consequence of more than three thousand bug bounty reports.
Immunefi claims to manage the largest blockchain security community, with over 45,000 researchers, and has stopped the theft of over $25 billion in user cash from platforms such as Optimism, Chainlink, The Graph, MakerDAO, Polygon, and Synthetix.
The largest white hat hacker bounty made possible by Immunefi was a $10 million payout for a flaw in the cross-chain protocol of Wormhole.
Disclaimer : This article was created for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. An asset’s past performance does not predict its future returns. Before making an investment, please conduct your own research, as digital assets like cryptocurrencies are highly risky and volatile financial instruments.
