US$656 million lost in first half of 2023

In the first half of 2023 alone, cryptocurrencies worth US$656 million were looted. Why this figure is nevertheless encouraging.

The crypto sector takes stock: in the first half of the year alone, scams, hacks and back pulls led to losses of US$656 million. This announced the Web3 security company Beosin on Twitter.

US$471 million alone was due to protocol hacks - a total of 108 were counted. 108 million US dollars was captured in phishing scams. Rug pulls take the smallest position with just under US$76 million stolen.

At first glance, these figures seem astronomical. In direct comparison with previous years, they represent huge improvements. US$1.91 billion was lost in the first half of 2021, compared to US$1.69 billion in the first half of 2022.

Great progress has also been made in recovering lost assets. For example, Beosin writes, "About $215 million in stolen assets were recovered, representing 45.5 percent of all stolen assets. By contrast, only 8 percent were recovered in 2022."

The worst cryptohack in the first half of 2023 hit Euler Finance. US$195 million can be attributed to a flash loan attack on the company alone. Most of the stolen assets were recovered.

The majority of the lost assets are tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, it adds (more than three-quarters). More than half of the stolen crypto assets were due to vulnerable smart contract vulnerabilities, the company said.