Crypto hacks reportedly led to $176 million in losses in June
More than 20 cryptocurrency hacking attacks led to a loss of $176 million (approximately Rs. XXX) in the month of June 2024, according to an analyst firm. This year, the crypto market has seen some signs of revival after the US SEC approved BTC and ETH ETFs in January. In the following months, the crypto sector’s valuation increased from $1.76 trillion in February to its current market cap of $2.32 trillion. Hackers targeting the crypto sector for profit are constantly on the lookout for victims, according to various research reports.
PeckShield’s Findings
Btcturk was the largest cryptocurrency-related hacking event in June, according to a report by crypto analytics firm PeckShield. In an official statement, Btcturk had announced that the attackers managed to gain access to hot wallets, leading to uncontrolled withdrawals. While BtcTurk had said that the financial loss from this incident amounted to EUR 51 million or $54.7 million (approximately Rs. 456 crore), PeckShield estimates the amount to be much higher and somewhere around $100.25 million (approximately Rs. 837 crore).
The hack of Lykke, a free-to-trade crypto exchange, was declared the second-largest crypto hack in June, the company said. The attack is expected to have resulted in losses of $22 million (roughly Rs. 183 crore).
Both BtcTurk and Lykke are centralized exchanges that act as government-controlled intermediaries between buyers and sellers of digital assets.
Meanwhile, the third, fourth and fifth crypto hacks that made it to PeckShield’s list are the hacks of decentralized money market protocol UwULend, tokenization platform Holograph and decentralized exchange Velocore. These hacks led to losses of $19.4 million (approximately Rs. 162 crore), $14.4 million (approximately Rs. 120 crore) and $6.8 million (approximately Rs. 56 crore), respectively.
UwULend, Holograph, and Velocore are all decentralized platforms that operate on blockchain or peer-to-peer network of computers, instead of relying on centralized traditional servers. These platforms give users more control over their content as opposed to platforms where one parent entity controls the content and can censor it at any time.
The analytics firm points out that hackers are becoming more creative and sophisticated in identifying and breaching advanced technologies for their financial gain. This leaves Web3 companies with solutions that prevent hackers from draining user funds stored on their respective platforms.
Cryptocurrency hacking fell in June
The discovery of 20 crypto hacks that led to losses of $176 million may seem alarming, but PeckShield claims that these numbers were even higher in the month of May. “This is a 54.2 percent decrease from May 2024,” the crypto analytics firm said in a post on X. It has also claimed that crypto hackers made over $385 million (roughly Rs. 3,215 crore) in profits in May.
Industry experts have repeatedly advised Web3 companies to invest heavily in security protocols, especially now that back-to-back hack attacks are making headlines. On crypto wallets, security researchers have warned that maintaining a hot wallet, which is connected to the web and whose private keys are also stored on crypto platforms, can be risky as these wallets are always vulnerable to hackers.
Crypto security companies such as PeckShield and Chainalysis help Web3 companies and law enforcement agencies maintain cybersecurity and mitigate impacts.
