The crypto trade is perpetually weak to malicious actions, with hackers seemingly relentless of their pursuits. It’s been solely two months into 2024 and crypto scams are already making their look. In accordance with blockchain auditor CertiK, crypto hacks and scams led to over $160 million in losses in February alone.
Though this determine noticed a discount from January losses, crypto losses from hacks, scams, and exploits have racked up rapidly and are actually at $343.5 million year-to-date.
Crypto Sector Loses $160 Million To Malicious Gamers
In accordance with the most recent replace by Certik, the cryptocurrency world has already been hit arduous by a collection of refined scams in 2024. Nearly all of February’s losses, about $101 million, got here from exploits of vulnerabilities of crypto tasks. Notably, Certik’s social media web page on X famous varied situations of exploits all through the month.
#CertiKStatsAlert 🚨
Combining all of the incidents in February we’ve confirmed ~$160M misplaced to exploits, hacks and scams
The overall is a slight lower from January with phishing accounting for ~$14.6m
Exit scams: ~$58.2mFlash loans: ~$138kExploits: ~$101MReturned: ~$6.4M… pic.twitter.com/E15cqbeELQ
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) February 29, 2024
For instance, on February 28, Certik famous that omnichain CDP protocol Seneca USD was exploited and the perpetrators stole at the least $3 million price of belongings. In complete, Seneca USD misplaced $6.46 million in February.
The biggest exploit, nonetheless, occurred on South Korean blockchain recreation improvement platform PlayDapp. An attacker took benefit of the platform’s sensible contract vulnerability and stole $32.35 million price of cryptocurrency. Different massive exploits occurred on Mounted Float, Jihoz.Run, and DuelBits, which suffered losses of $26 million, $9.7 million, and $4.66 million respectively.
Certik famous that buyers additionally misplaced $58.2 million to exit scams in February. That is when the builders of a crypto venture all of the sudden disappear with buyers’ funds after attracting big sums of cash.
Complete crypto market cap is at the moment at $2.262 trillion. Chart: TradingView.com
Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency alternate BitForex accounted for almost all of the exit scams in February. The alternate abruptly went offline following the mysterious withdrawal of $56.5 million from its scorching wallets. RiskOnBlast, a playing and alternate platform, additionally disappeared with $1.29 million price of investor cash.
The trade additionally misplaced $138,000 to flash loans, a drastic discount from the $15.3 million recorded in January. $6.4 million was returned, with the biggest coming from the Seneca exploiter who returned 1,537 ETH price $5.3 million to the venture.
Can The Crypto Trade Be Really Free From Scams?
Cryptocurrencies present full anonymity to their customers, however hacks and thefts are a number of the drawbacks that come from the broader benefits of this anonymity. Regardless of varied safety measures being employed, attackers have upped their recreation and expanded their operations over time.
Current reviews, nonetheless, reveal that scams and exploits have lowered drastically prior to now yr. Significantly, a report disclosed that losses from crypto scams dropped from $39.6 billion in 2022 to $24.2 billion in 2023.
Featured picture from Pexels, chart from TradingView
