Bad Actors Win Big In Crypto With Over $3 Billion Stolen In 2022

Bad actors are now almost synonymous with the crypto space given the number of scams and hacks perpetuated on an almost daily basis. So far in the year 2022, these bad actors have come out on top, beating out previous years’ records. With $3 billion stolen already in 2022, they have had a very ‘productive year.’

Billions Of Dollars Moved Through Crypto Hacks 

A Forbes report details the hacks of 2022 and how much these attackers have been able to steal this year alone. Citing a Chainalysis report, it explains that over the course of the year, hackers stole $3 billion from 125 hacks. The majority of these had been from decentralized finance (DeFi) attacks alone.

While the crypto industry is still relatively young, the DeFi space is even younger, only coming into prominence just about a year ago. This means that security protocols have not been completely figured out yet, leaving room for attackers to exploit them for personal benefits. This is not helped by the fact that these DeFi protocols are pushed out in rapid succession without adequate tests for security measures.

The report details the platforms which had lost the most to these hacks. An alarming fact was that $1.48 billion was lost in only five hacks in the year. These include the Ronin Network which lost $625 million and was attributed to North Korean hackers.

Next was Wormhole Network losing a whopping $325 million. Another $190 million was stolen when the Nomad bridge was exploited a couple of months ago, the third-largest for the year. Coming in fourth and fifth place were Beanstalk Farms which was exploited for $182 million and the Wintermute hack that saw attackers make way with $160 million.

Together, these five exploits accounted for almost half of all of the funds lost to hacks this year. 

Market cap drops to $758 billion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com

Binance also saw its own fair share of the action when a bridge that connected BSC and the Beacon Chain was exploited. At first, reports were that the hacker had made off with over $500 million but the exchange was able to recover some of the funds, leaving about $110 million lost in the hack. However, the centralized exchange itself was not breached.

As for the centralized exchanges that were breached, Crypto.com comes first with its $35 million hack that was recorded at the start of the year. FTX was the next in line about 11 months later when unauthorized transactions on the exchange saw over $370 million stolen. The U.S. Department of Justice is now reportedly investigating the FTX hack. Luckily, these were the only hacks for centralized exchanges for the year which hold considerably more cryptocurrencies than their decentralized counterparts.

With the FTX hack, the amount stolen has surpassed the previous year’s figure of $327 million. This is the fourth-highest coming behind 2014, 2016, and 2018.

Featured image from Forbes, chart from TradingView.com