In November, the cryptocurrency industry experienced significant losses, with bug bounty platform Immunefi reporting that over $343 million was lost to platform hacks and fraudulent activities.
This marks the highest monthly loss recorded in the emerging industry for 2023.
Detailing the extent of the loss, Immunefi’s report reveals that the $343 million loss is a 15.4 times increase compared to the over $22.1 million recorded in October 2023.
November saw $343 million lost to crypto hacks and fraud cases: Immunefi.
— Thecryptopreacher. (@Rumerule) November 30, 2023
Crypto hacks contributed the largest share to this record, with malicious actors making away with a total of $335,574,150 across 18 specific incidents. Crypto frauds accounted for a total of $7,464,660, recorded in 23 specific incidents.
Furthermore, Immunefi pointed out that centralized finance (CeFi) platforms accounted for the most losses in November 2023. CeFi platforms lost $184,440,000 across four separate incidents, representing a whopping 53.8% of the total losses for the month.
The leading bug bounty platform associates this significant spike to the hacks of Justin Sun’s Poloniex, HTX (formerly Huobi Global), and Taiwanese venture capital firm Kronos Research platforms.
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— Poloniex Customer Support (@PoloSupport) November 10, 2023
The trio lost a combined value of over $132.9 million from three separate malicious attacks.
On the other hand, the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem also experienced notable losses, totaling $158,638,810 across 37 separate incidents. This accounted for the remaining 46.2% loss.
Given the sizable market share the Ethereum blockchain and BNB Chain enjoy in the decentralized economy, the robust smart contract networks were the leaders in the most impacted chains in the report.
According to Immunefi, Ethereum and the BNB Chain had a combined 34 separate incidents, accounting for 83% of decentralized applications (dApps) on their platform.
Layer-2 scaling solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism suffered three incidents (7.3%) and one incident (2.4%).
Other smart contract networks, including Avalanche, Fantom, and Heco Chain, witnessed one incident (2.4%) each.
Over $1.7 Billion Lost in 2023
The crypto market has become a target for numerous cyber threat groups, with the state-backed Lazarus Group leading the pack. This group has successfully stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from inadequately secured blockchain protocols.
Despite a challenging start to 2023, crypto hacks and frauds show no signs of slowing down. Immunefi reports that the nascent industry has incurred losses exceeding $1.7 billion year-to-date, spread across 296 separate incidents.
Highlighting the months with the highest crypto hack activities, the bug bounty platform ranks November as the highest, followed by September with $340 million in recorded losses, and July securing the third position with $320 million.
