Losses from cryptocurrency hacks rose nearly 60 percent to $1.9 billion (about Rs 15,070 crore) in the first seven months of the year, according to a blog post by Blockchain, in money stolen from the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol. Driven by growth. Analysis firm Chainalysis released on Tuesday.
In the same period last year, the amount of money stolen from hacking stood at $1.2 billion (about Rs 9,500 crore).
DeFi applications, many of which run on the Ethereum blockchain, are financial platforms that enable cryptocurrency-denominated lending outside of traditional banks.
Chainalysis noted that given the $190 million (approximately Rs 1,500 crore) hacking of the cross-chain Bridge Nomad and already $5 million (about Rs 40 crore) of several Solana wallets, the trend is likely to reverse soon. is not likely. First week of August.
“DeFi protocols are uniquely vulnerable to hacking, as their open source code can be studied by cybercriminals looking for exploits and it is possible that the incentives of the protocols to reach the market and rapidly increase security best practices. Make a mistake,” said Chainalysis. blog.
The US firm wrote that much of the money stolen from the DeFi protocol can be attributed to “bad actors” affiliated with North Korea, particularly elite hacking entities such as the Lazarus Group.
Chainalysis estimates that so far this year, groups linked to North Korea have stolen nearly $1 billion (about Rs 7,930 crore) of cryptocurrency from the DeFi protocol.
With regards to crypto scams, the blockchain intelligence firm saw a sharp 65% drop during July in line with the decline in the prices of digital assets. Total scam revenue as of July stood at $1.6 billion (approximately Rs 12,700 crore), down 65 per cent from about $4.46 billion (approximately Rs 35,380 crore) in the same period last year.
Scammers can impersonate legitimate businesses and provide fraudulent crypto coins or tokens.
“Scams have reduced primarily because of the crypto recession, but also because of the many law enforcement victories against scammers and product solutions that exchanges can use to fight scams,” said Kim Grauer, director of research, Chainalysis, in an email. said in. Reuters.
According to CoinGecko, the crypto market capitalization stood at $1.1 trillion (about Rs 87,26,400 crore) late Thursday, down more than 50 percent from about $2.35 trillion (about Rs 1,86,41,600 crore) at the beginning of the year. So far this year, the price of bitcoin has fallen by about 48 per cent and has ranged between $20,000 (approximately Rs 15.8 lakh) to $24,000 (approximately Rs 19 lakh) in the past few months.
Since January 2022, scam-related earnings have fallen in line with the price of bitcoin, Chainalysis said. Not only did the income from scams decline, but the cumulative number of individual transfers in scams in 2022 was the lowest in the past four years.
“Those numbers suggest that fewer people are falling for cryptocurrency scams than ever before,” Chainalysis said in the report.
“One of the reasons for this may be that with asset prices falling, cryptocurrency scams – which typically present themselves as passive crypto investment opportunities with huge promised returns – have little to do with potential victims. are tempting.”
© Thomson Reuters 2022
