Hackers made away with $2 billion USD in cryptocurrency in 2023, according to data from the cryptocurrency portfolio tracker and security firm De.Fi, TechCrunch reported.
De.Fi publishes a database that ranks the worst cryptocurrency thefts throughout the year. In 2023, the company says that those attacks amounted to a total of $2 billion. Among some of the worst attacks listed was a September attack against Mixin Network, a blockchain security consultancy, that resulted in the loss of over $200 million USD in assets.
Another hack targeting NFTs was carried out against HXA Token Exploit in December, where attackers made out with nearly $30 million USD worth of tokens. These make up only a portion of the numerous attacks this year.
“This amount, though dispersed across various incidents, underscores the persistent vulnerabilities and challenges within the DeFi ecosystem,” De.Fi wrote in its report, per TechCrunch. “2023 stood as a testament to both the ongoing vulnerabilities and the strides made in addressing them, even as interest in the space was relatively muted by the ongoing bear market in the first half of the year.”
TechCrunch also cited another report from earlier this month from TRM Labs, whose data showed that $1.7 billion USD in crypto assets had been stolen since the beginning of the year. Tack on a few weeks since that data was reported and it essentially serves to back up the $2 billion USD claim.
While crypto being susceptible to cyber theft isn’t entirely surprising, the data draws into question the security firms that many trading platforms use. It seems that web3 security, as an industry, still has a lot of issues that need ironing out before it can safeguard crypto and NFTs.
