The bubble may have burst for the cryptocurrency market. In 2022, total cryptocurrency trading volume declined by 46 percent year-over-year in the crypto market. In addition, Bitcoin lost 64 percent of its market cap in 2022 and the total cryptocurrency market cap fell by 64 percent.
In addition, 2022 was also a record year for crypto hacks. During the 12-month period, digitally active criminals stole more than $3.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency.
According to data presented by CryptoPresales.com, more than $8.9 billion has been stolen in crypto heists to date. A major contributor to this has been the 2022 activity. Here, hackers seized more currency in the past year than for 2019, 2020, and 2021 combined.
The scale of criminal activity has grown considerably. Cryptocurrency heists have transitioned from only nine hacks reported in 2017 to 132 in 2021. In August 2021 alone, nearly $730 million were lost to crypto security threats. Of this amount, $610 million were stolen by one individual in a Poly Network heist, which ended up being the second-largest crypto hack ever.
An alternative way of looking at this is that since 2011 there have been 500 cases of crypto heists worldwide, yet 65 percent of these have occurred in the last two years. The months recording the highest number of attacks to date have been April, May and October 2022 (each with around 20 reported hacks per month).
According to Comparitech data, the number of attacks jumped by 45 percent. 2022 saw 192 crypto heists, ranging from cross-chain hacks to code exploits, while hackers stole $3.57 billion of investor funds.
Among the most serious incidents were with gaming-based crypto network Ronin Network, which reported a major hack in March 2022. Here $620 million was stolen in total. This is the biggest reported crypto heist to date.
Seven months later, hackers carried out a $570 million hack on Binance’s BNB chain, the third largest crypto heist to date, draining two billion BNB tokens from the cross-chain bridge.
In November 2022, hackers stole around $477 million worth of cryptocurrency from collapsed exchange FTX, making it the fifth-largest heist in the crypto space.
In terms of geographical vulnerabilities, North America stands at the top with every seventh crypto heist has happening in the U.S.
