Cryptocurrency hacking losses jumped nearly 60% to $1.9 billion in the first seven months of the year I was. Funds have been stolen from a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, according to a blog post by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis released on Tuesday.
At the same time last year, he had $1.2 billion in funds stolen by hacks.
DeFi applications, many of which run on the Ethereum blockchain, are financial platforms that enable cryptocurrency loans outside traditional banks.
Chainalysis found a $190 million hack of cross-chain bridge Nomad and his $557 million hack of multiple Solana wallets already in the first week of August. Given that, he points out that this trend is unlikely to reverse anytime soon.
Cybercriminals looking for exploits can tirelessly study the code, and the incentives of rapidly growing protocols to enter the market can lead to the lapse of security best practices. There is,” Chainalysis said in a blog post.
Much of the money stolen from DeFi protocols goes to"villains" affiliated with North Korea, especially elites like the Lazarus Group. Hacking Unit, a US company wrote.
Chainalysis estimates that North Korea-affiliated groups have stolen approximately $1 billion in cryptocurrencies from his DeFi protocol so far this year.
Crypto FraudBlockchain intelligence companies saw a steep 65% drop by July, in line with the slump in digital asset prices. rice field. Total fraud revenue for the year to July was $1.6 billion, down 65% from approximately $4.46 billion in the same period last year.
Scammers may offer fraudulent crypto coins or tokens by impersonating legitimate companies.
"Fraud is declining, largely due to the downturn in cryptocurrencies , but law enforcement has scored many victories against scammers and exchanges We also owe it to the product solutions we can use to fight fraud,” said Kim. Grauer, his director of research at Chainalysis, said in an email to Reuters:
The market cap of the cryptocurrency was at $1.1 trillion at the end of Thursday, according to CoinGecko, down more than 50% from about $2.35 trillion at the beginning of the year. did. Bitcoin has hovered between $20,000 and $24,000 over the past few months, with the price down about 48% so far this year.
Since January 2022, fraud-related revenues have fallen in proportion to the price of Bitcoin, Chainalysis said. Not only has revenue from fraud declined, but the cumulative number of individual remittances to fraud in 2022 was the lowest in four years.
"These numbers suggest that fewer people fall for cryptocurrency scams than ever before," Chainalysis said in a report.
"One of the reasons for this is that declining asset prices have led to cryptocurrency fraud (usually as an opportunity for passive crypto investment with the promise of huge returns). presented) weakens the potential attractiveness of the victim.”
