The crypto business has misplaced barely greater than $30 billion to hackers since 2012, with over 30% of that ($10.95 billion) stolen from centralized exchanges, as revealed by analysis performed by blockchain safety agency SlowMist.
The safety agency reported that between 2012 and 2023, these exchanges endured 118 hacks, with the 2 most important ones occurring in 2021 and representing nearly $5 billion of the general losses.
The information additionally signifies that almost all of large-scale hacks happened throughout bullish market cycles.
Compared, hackers have managed to extract lower than $1 billion instantly from blockchain networks and cryptocurrency wallets throughout this era. Sizzling wallets alone have suffered losses amounting to $408.9 million, whereas blockchain networks have misplaced a comparatively smaller sum of $207.2 million to malicious actors.
The non-fungible token (NFT) sector has incurred losses amounting to $200 million, primarily as a consequence of phishing hyperlinks and social engineering scams.
Lastly, bridge protocol hacks have accounted for simply over $2 billion of the full funds stolen throughout this era.
Ecosystem losses
The information reveals that Ethereum and BNB Chain (previously Binance Good Chain) have been the toughest hit by hackers by way of each the variety of hacks and the sum of money misplaced.
Hackers have pilfered $3.1 billion from the Ethereum ecosystem by way of 217 separate hacks. BNB Chain, alternatively, has seen losses of $1.45 billion throughout 162 distinct hacks.
Regardless of being the third most steadily focused, the EOS ecosystem has comparatively misplaced a a lot smaller sum, totaling $25.9 million. In distinction, Solana and Polygon have skilled substantial losses of $202.7 million and $177.9 million, respectively, regardless of fewer assaults – 13 for Solana and 16 for Polygon.
The Avalanche community has been compromised eight occasions, leading to a cumulative lack of $127.7 million.
The analysis additionally contains information from chains similar to Tron, Fantom, Polkadot, and HECO. Collectively, these chains have endured fewer than 50 hacks and misplaced lower than $200 million.
Lastly, the remaining $10.9 billion of the full stolen funds falls underneath the “Different” class as per SlowMist. This class encompasses all different varieties of blockchain hacks, scams, rug pulls, and numerous types of digital theft not explicitly talked about.