In comparison to the $8 billion taken in 2021, the crypto sector lost about $4 billion in digital assets to hacks, fraud, scams, and rug pulls last year.
The crypto industry lost $3,9 billion in 2022, according to a new analysis by Immunefi, a platform for bug bounties and security services for the Web3 ecosystem. Five significant exploits, totaling $2,361,000,000 alone, accounted for 59.8% of all losses throughout the year.
The vast majority of crypto losses in 2022 were caused by hacking, among other illicit acts. More precisely, approximately $3. 7 billion, or more than 95% of all crypto lost in the year, was stolen by hackers. Only 4.4% of the overall losses were attributable to fraud, scams, and rug pulling.
Overall, 2022 might be ranked as one of the worst years for the crypto ecosystem because both centralized and decentralized financial systems (DeFi and CeFi) had significant catastrophic incidents. The Terra/LUNA ecosystem failed in May, and the important cryptocurrency exchange FTX went down in early November, which is two of the most famous cases.
With 65 and 49 occurrences, respectively, Binance’s native blockchain BNB Chain and Ethereum were the two most attacked blockchains in 2017. BNB Chain and Ethereum together accounted for 63.3% of all blockchain assaults. With 12 occurrences or 6.7% of all assaults, FTX-backed Solanas was the third most often targeted chain in 2022.
It’s important to remember that some of the stolen money was also found last year. This figure only accounts for 5.2% of all losses in 2022 “says the research.
The largest cryptocurrency hack of 2022 involved the Ronin blockchain of Axie Infinity, where thieves stole about $625 million worth of Ethereum and USDC. This hack was followed by smaller ones involving Wormhole ($326 million), Nomad ($190 million), BNB Chain ($570 million), and FTX ($650 million), which together accounted for 60% of all losses in 2022.
Immunefi CEO Mitchell Amador stated that the losses serve as a warning that the Web3 industry needs improved security procedures.
