Almost a Quarter-million Lost to Crypto Hacks Every Hour This Year

Michael Edgar

18 October 2023, 04.12pm

Crypto hacks report reveal soaring losses, with over £237, 500 lost every hour so far this year.

According to a recent report from The Money Mongers, the total number of crypto heists this year has reached 297, resulting in over £1.5 billion in losses to hackers so far.

This is coming off the back of a record breaking year in 2022, when over £2.8 billion was lost across 284 heist incidents.

Cumulatively, since 2011, crypto companies and exchanges have endured a loss of over £10.1 billion in a total of 1,207 incidents.

According to a separate tracker from Comparitech, when taking into account rug pulls and scams in the crypto sphere, the total amount lost jumps from just over £10 billion to almost £22 billion.

This underscores not only the existing threat facing players in the crypto sphere, but the persistence of danger in the sphere as a whole.

“The amount stolen in 2023 has dipped, however, with nearly $733 million in losses reported so far compared to $1.9 billion in 2022 (from January to June),” said Rebecca Moody, head of data research at Comparitech. “This month has already seen losses of $140 million and we’re only just over ten days in.”

Unique to these past two years is the surge in DeFi (decentralized finance) as a new frontier for vulnerabilities. Between 2022 and 2023, there were 169 DeFi hacks, culminating in a collective loss of over £920 million.

According to the report, the two most prevalent hacking methods are contract vulnerabilities and flash loan attacks, accounting for £2.2 billion in losses overall.

A flash loan, on the other hand, exploits the use of temporary, uncollateralized loans within the crypto ecosystem. In this attack, the threat actor borrows crypto, often from a DeFi platform, to manipulate markets. After which, the borrowed funds are repaid but substantial gains or damages may occur in the process.