Crypto Exploit Losses Fell by 93 Percent in January, Security Firm Says

The month of January seemingly witnessed the revival of the crypto sector that witnessed a spectacular meltdown in the second half of last year. Not only have majority crypto assets risen in their respective values last month, but losses incurred dur to crypto exploits have also reportedly dropped by 93 percent in January, as compared to the same month last year. A report by a blockchain security firm notes that stolen crypto funds are still being routed into destination wallets via crypto mixers like Tornado Cash, despite the increased scrutiny on these services.

A total of 24 crypto exploits were recorded by blockchain security firm PeckShield last month. Collectively, these exploits amounted to $8.8 million (roughly Rs. 72 crore). In January 2022, the company had estimated the value of crypto funds lost in exploits to be around $120 million (roughly Rs. 980 crore).

In its findings, PeckShield claimed that last month’s biggest exploit was suffered by LendHub. The DeFi lending and borrowing platform lost $6 million (roughly Rs. 50 crore) during the exploit, accounting for 68 percent of the total funds lost.

Thereum Finance and Midas Capital also suffered hack attacks, losing $580,000 (roughly Rs. 5 crore) and $650,000 (roughly Rs. 5.5 crore) this January, making for notable incidences, according to a CoinTelegraph report.

Despite these incidents, the amount of funds lost due to crypto exploits last month was 68 percent lower than in December.

Out of all the funds that were stolen, $2.6 million (roughly Rs. 21 crore) worth of crypto assets were sent to crypto mixers. These include Binance Coin and Ether.

Back in 2022, the top ten hack attacks that impacted the crypto sector led to the loss of over $2 billion (roughly Rs. 17,181 crore).

Industry experts have regularly predicted that as and when more nations introduce laws to govern the crypto space, the number of hack attacks hitting the industry are likely to go down.