Immunefi, a bug bounty and security services platform for the Web3 ecosystem, published a report on Jan. 6 revealing that the crypto industry lost a total of 3.9 billion dollars in 2022. According to the report, hacks were found to be the main cause of the losses, accounting for 95.6% of the total, with fraud, scams, and rug pulls comprising the remaining 4.4%. Immunefi also found that decentralized finance (DeFi) was the most targeted sector, suffering 80.5% in losses, compared to centralized finance (CeFi) which suffered a loss of 19.5%. According to the report: “DeFi has suffered $3,180,023,103 in total …

This year was a turbulent one for the whole crypto space. From NFTs to DeFi and exchanges, all areas of the industry felt the cold blows of crypto winter. Unfortunately, such an unfavorable climate is the perfect breeding ground for scammers to exploit distressed investors’ crypto wallets. The most recent examples of crypto scams include hackers stealing NFTs through over 500 fake phishing domains, while robocallers started targeting FTX customers in the aftermath of the exchange’s crash. Such malicious attacks have become an everyday occurrence in the space, and the crypto community is actively working on protective measures. On one …

YouTuber Logan Paul has threatened to sue fellow YouTuber and internet detective Coffeezilla for defamation after he accused Paul’s CryptoZoo nonfungible token (NFT) project of being a “scam.” The two have been battling back and forth on both social media and YouTube videos ever since Dec. 17, when Stephen Findeisen — also known as Coffeezilla — launched the first of a three-part video series attacking CryptoZoo and Paul, who was the face of the project. “CryptoZoo was supposed to be a fun blockchain game that can earn you money [...] but millions of dollars of investor money later, things are …

Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden has pledged to refund all users who were duped into purchasing fake NFTs on its website as a result of an exploit. In a Jan. 4 statement, the company said a bug in its newly deployed "activity indexer" for its Snappy Marketplace and Pro Trade tools essentially allowed fake NFTs to skirt verification and get listed alongside genuine NFT collections. Magic Eden said the exploit led to 25 fraudulent NFTs sold across four collections in the last 24 hours but is currently confirming whether additional NFTs were affected beyond the last day. Two of …

The new year is a fresh start for malicious actors in the crypto space and 2023 won’t likely see a slowdown in scams, exploits and hacks, according to CertiK. The blockchain security company told Cointelegraph its expectations for the year ahead regarding bad actors in the space, saying: “We saw a large number of incidents last year despite the crypto bear market, so we do not anticipate a respite in exploits, flash loans or exit scams.” Regarding other ill-natured incidents the crypto community might face, the company pointed to the “devastating” exploits that took place on cross-chain bridges in 2022. …

Cryptocurrency hackers and exploiters seemingly slowed down for the 2022 holidays as December saw $62.2 million worth of cryptocurrencies stolen, the “lowest monthly figure” of the year according to CertiK. The blockchain security company tweeted a list of the month's most significant attacks on Dec. 31. It highlighted the $15.5 million worth of exit scams as the method that stole the most value over the month followed by the $7.6 million worth of flash loan-based exploits. #CertiKStatsAlert Combining all the incidents in December we’ve confirmed ~$62.2M lost to exploits, hacks and scams. The lowest monthly figure this year. Exit scams …

On the back of the worst year for crypto hacks and exploits, the crypto community has given some advice to newbie investors going into 2023 — check your smart contract approvals and revoke access regularly. Reddit user 4cademy posted their advice to the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit on Jan. 1, noting that they had approved a slew of smart contracts over a two-year period and “thought it was time to check my approved smart contracts.” They found “nearly all” of their approvals were for “unlimited amounts," which spurred them to revoke approvals for all smart contracts in their wallet as it was …

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. For DeFi, the last week of 2022 saw another slew of exploits, insider job accusations and exit scam drama. It all started on Christmas, when Defrost Finance, a decentralized leveraged trading platform on the Avalanche blockchain, was exploited by a DeFi flash loan attack causing $12 million in losses. However, the hacker behind the attacks reportedly returned a portion of the funds the next day. Security analytic firm Certik looked into the chain of …

It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that our industry is facing tough times. We’ve been in the midst of a “crypto winter” for some time now, with the prices of mainstays, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), tumbling. Likewise, monthly nonfungible token (NFT) trading volumes have fallen more than 90% since their multibillion dollar peak back in January of this year. Of course, these declines have only been exacerbated by the numerous black swan events rocking the crypto world, such as the FTX and Three Arrows Capital meltdowns. Taken together, it shouldn’t be a surprise that crypto is facing a …

It's been a turbulent year for the cryptocurrency industry — market prices have taken a huge dip, crypto giants have collapsed and billions have been stolen in crypto exploits and hacks. It was not even halfway through October when Chainalysis declared 2022 to be the “biggest year ever for hacking activity.” As of Dec. 29, the 10 largest exploits of 2022 have seen $2.1 billion stolen from crypto protocols. Below are those exploits and hacks, ranked from smallest to largest. 10: Beanstalk Farms exploit — $76M Stablecoin protocol Beanstalk Farms suffered a $76 million exploit on April 18 from an …

The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) has fired off 17 separate warnings over two days of crypto brokers and websites it suspects of being fraudulent. The list includes Tahoe Digital Exchange, TeleTrade Options, Tony Alin Trading Firm, Hekamenltd/Tosal Markets Limited, Trade 1960, Yong Ying Global Investment Company Limited, Unison FX, VoyanX.com, and ZC Exchange, to name a few. Additionally, there are two copycat sites posing as two big names in the crypto sector with eth-Wintermute.net, and UniSwap LLC. At the time of writing, the DFPI's consumer alert page has posted 17 warnings over Dec. 27 and Dec. …

As the FTX collapse left many users yearning for the return of lost funds, scammers are using the opportunity to take advantage of the already injured victims, posing as government officials. In a post, the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation (DFR) warned crypto investors that there are fake applications and websites put up by scammers aiming to take money but give nothing in return. The DFR urged traders to make sure to “do their homework” before sending any of their funds to crypto trading platforms. As an example, the DFR also spoke of an incident concerning a website that claimed …