Besides being one of the hardest years for the crypto market, 2022 was also a record year for crypto hacks. Last year alone, crypto thieves stole more than $3,5-billion worth of cryptos.
According to data presented by CryptoPresales.com, more than $8,9-billion has been stolen in crypto heists to date.
Cryptocurrency heists took off in the last five years, going from only nine hacks reported in 2017 to 132 in 2021. In August 2021 alone, nearly $730 million were lost to crypto security threats. Of this amount, $610 million were stolen by an individual in a Poly Network heist, which ended up being the second-largest crypto hack ever.
According to Comparitech data, hackers stole more than a shocking $2.7bn in 132 crypto heists in 2021. However, last year, the number of attacks jumped by 45%. Statistics show that 2022 alone saw 192 crypto heists, ranging from cross-chain hacks to code exploits, while hackers stole a mind-blowing $3.57bn of investor funds- more than in 2019, 2020, and 2021 combined.
Since 2011, there have been 500 cases of crypto heists worldwide, and nearly 65% of them has happened in the last two years. Analyzed by months, October, April, and May 2022 were the worst months for crypto heists, with around 20 reported hacks each.
Besides seeing the highest number of crypto hacks so far, 2022 has also witnessed some of the biggest crypto heists. In fact, three out of the five biggest hacks of all time happened last year.
In March 2022, a gaming-based crypto network Ronin Network announced it had been hacked, and a whopping $620 million had been stolen in total, making it the biggest crypto heist to date.
Sevem months later, hackers carried out a $570 million hack on Binance’s BNB chain, the third largest crypto heist to date, draining two billion BNB tokens from the cross-chain bridge. However, a vast sum of these stolen tokens was frozen thanks to quick-acting, while $110 million were unrecoverable.
In November, hackers stole around $477 million worth of cryptocurrency from collapsed exchange FTX, making it the fifth-largest heist in the crypto space. Statistics show hackers stole nearly $1.7bn worth of cryptos from these three attacks alone.