News
Cryptocurrency Cyber Attacks Double to $1.38 Billion in H1 (Cryptocurrency: BTC-USD)
bizoo_n
Blockchain research firm TRM Labs said Friday that $1.38 billion in cryptocurrency was lost to hackers and network attacks in the first half of 2024, double the amount from the same period last year.
However, the amount stolen this year is still more than a third lower than in the first six months of 2022, when nearly $2 billion was stolen, marking a record year for cryptocurrency hacks.
Similar to last year, a few large hacks accounted for the majority of stolen funds. The top five hacks and exploits accounted for 70% of the YTD hack, while the median hack was 150% larger than in 2023.
With over 4,500 bitcoins (BTC-USD exchange rate) worth over $300 million stolen, the attack on Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DMM Bitcoin remains the largest cryptocurrency hack this year, according to TRM data as of June 24.
The company attributed the surge in theft activity to the increase in average cryptocurrency prices over the course of the last six months.
Despite a brief sell-off this week, major cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (BTC-USD exchange rate), Ethereum (ETH-USD), Solana (SOL-USD), Dogecoin (DOGE-USD), and pointed ether (SETH-USD) have all returned more than 20% YTD, far outpacing the S&P 500 Index (SP500).
“To date, TRM has not observed any fundamental changes in the security of the cryptocurrency ecosystem that could explain this upward trend, nor we found “significant differences in attack vectors or number of attacks between the first half of 2023 and the first half of 2024,” TRM said.