Crypto Hacks Reportedly Led to $176 Million in Losses in June; Analytics Firm Flags Over 20 Cryptocurrency Hacks

Over 20 cryptocurrency hacking attacks led to a loss of $176 million (roughly Rs. XXX) in the month of June 2024, according to an analytics firm. This year, the crypto market saw some signs of revival after the US SEC approved BTC and ETH ETFs in January. In the subsequent months, the crypto sector valuation rose from 1.76 trillion in February to its current market cap of 2.32 trillion. Hackers targeting the crypto sector to mint profits have been constantly on the lookout for victims, as per various research reports.

PeckShield's Findings

Btcturk was the biggest 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 access 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 (roughly Rs. 456 crore), PeckShield estimates that the figure was much higher and somewhere around $100.25 million (roughly Rs. 837 crore).

The hack of Lykke, a free to trade crypto exchange, was named the second biggest crypto hack in June, according to the firm. This attack is projected to have resulted in a loss of $22 million (roughly Rs. 183 crore).

Both, BtcTurk and Lykke are centralised exchanges which operate as government-controlled intermediaries between buyers and sellers of digital assets.

Meanwhile, the third, fourth, and fifth crypto hack instances that made it to PeckShield's list include the hacks of decentralised money market protocol UwULend, tokenisation platform Holograph, and decentralised exchange Velocore – that led to losses of $19.4 million (roughly Rs. 162 crore), $14.4 million (roughly Rs. 120 crore), and $6.8 million (roughly Rs. 56 crore) respectively.

UwULend, Holograph, and Velocore are all decentralised platforms that operate on blockchain or peer-to-peer network of computers, rather than relying on centralised 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 anytime.

The analytics firm points out that hackers are getting more creative and sophisticated in-terms of identifying and violating advanced technologies for their monetary benefits. This leaves Web3 firms to come up with solutions that prevent hackers from draining the user funds saved on their respective platforms.

Cryptocurrency hacking dropped in June

The detection of 20 crypto hacks resulting to losses worth $176 million might seem concerning, but PeckShield claims that these numbers were even higher in the month of May. “This marks a decrease of 54.2 percent from May 2024,” the crypto analytics firm said in a post on X. It has also claimed crypto hackers earned more than $385 million (roughly Rs. 3,215 crore) in profits in May.

Industry experts have time and again advised Web3 firms to invest heavily in security protocols, especially now that back-to-back hack attacks have been making it to the headlines. About crypto wallets, security researchers have warned people that keeping a hot wallet, that is connected to the web and the private keys of which are also stored within crypto platforms, could be risky as these wallets are always prone to being hacked.

Crypto security firms like PeckShield and Chainalysis have been assisting Web3 firms and law enforcement agencies in maintaining cyber security and mitigating the aftereffects.