Crypto hackers steal $3 billion in 2022, expected to surpass the previous year’s record

Despite the fact that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have been continuously crashing this year, digital currencies continue to be a valuable asset for hackers. Interestingly, October 2022 has become the busiest month for hacking, with $718 million stolen from Defi protocols across 11 incidents.

According to Chainalysis, investors have lost over $3 billion in 125 hacks in 2022, surpassing 2021 as the most active year for hacking events. The first four major hacks occurred earlier this month, followed by 11 hacks in the next 11 days, resulting in a $718 million loss from decentralized finance projects.

In 2022, hackers have stolen $3 billion worth of crypto

The Binance Bridge event, in which threat actors stole cryptocurrencies worth $586 million, was one of the biggest hacks in 2022, followed by the QANX bridge, which resulted in a $1.16 million cash out. The $2.3 million Temple DAO hack and the $117 million Mango Markets hack on Oct. 11 are just two of the big names that lost money as a result of hackers, increasing the total value of stolen funds in 2022.

Despite the continued rhetoric from blockchain proponents about how secure a consistent and immutable chain of data is, cross-chain bridges remain a primary target of hackers.

According to Chainalysis, three bridges were compromised last month, resulting in the theft of approximately $600 million in cryptocurrency. Crypto bridges, for the uninitiated, are used to transfer cryptocurrency between two separate blockchains.

However, the American blockchain analysis firm observed that the number of hacking incidents decreased slightly over the summer and appeared to plateau in August, in addition to the ongoing crypto market issues. The world’s most widely used coins, including bitcoin and ether, have yet to regain the value they lost during the May crypto crisis.

In 2022, hackers stole more than $3 billion from over 125 attacks, according to estimates. According to researchers, by the end of this year, hackers will have likely surpassed the previous record of $3.25 billion in losses set in 2021.

As per a report, 2022 will most likely be the year with the most hacking events, based solely on the amount of money stolen in cryptocurrencies and NFT initiatives.

Every day, it appears that there is a new hack demonstrating how it is impossible to predict which project will be the next to have its users’ cryptocurrency stolen. This is due to the fact that there are always more crypto hype men pushing new decentralized autonomous organizations (AKA DAOs) or the next big “hot wallet” application that allows users to manage cryptocurrency through apps.

The major players who lost big money in 2022

Here is a list of all the major crypto hacking incidents in 2022, beginning with the largest loss of the year — a $586 million crypto hack of Binance Bridge, followed by other hacks involving multiple bridges.

Binance Bridge suffers a $586 million loss.
Wormhole Bridge suffers a $320 million loss.
The Nomad Bridge suffers a $190 million loss.
Beanstalk Farms suffers a $182 million loss.
Wintermute suffers a $160 million loss.
Elrond suffers a $113 million loss.
Horizon Bridge suffers a $100 million loss.
Mango Markets suffers a $100 million loss.
Qubit Finance suffers a $80 million loss.

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