92% Decrease in Crypto Losses Due to Hacks and Exploits in August (Report)

The security services platform that offers protection against Web3 bugs – Immunefi – estimated that hackers and fraudsters have drained approximately $23.4 million worth of digital assets from crypto projects in August.

While the figure might sound significant, it is 92% less than the recorded losses in July when wrongdoers siphoned over $320 million.

Last Month’s Numbers

As analyzed by the platform, the exact losses that crypto projects suffered due to such attacks in August are $23,366,220. Hacks accounted for almost 70% of the total sum ($15.8 million), and fraud made up an additional $7.5 million. Immunefi noted that DeFi organizations were the main target for bad actors last month, whereas CeFi “hasn’t witnessed a single major exploit.”

The blockchains that suffered the most individual attacks over the past 30 days are Ethereum, Base, and BNB Chain, representing around 62% of the total losses. Optimism was targeted twice, while Solana, Arbitrum, and Avalanche registered one incident each. 

One of the largest single frauds occurred on Magnate Finance – a lending protocol on the recently launched Base blockchain. 

As CryptoPotato reported last week, Magnate Finance pulled the rug just a few hours after the anonymous X (Twitter) user ZachXBT alerted the community about a possible fraud running on the platform. Magnate’s deployer was found to have a connection with two DeFi projects that turned out to be exit scams – Solfire and Kokomo Finance.

Further analysis determined that the wrongdoer later bridged approximately $1 million of the drained assets to the BNB Chain. Following the scam, Magnate Finance’s website went offline, while the team deleted the Telegram channel and the X account.

The Recorded Losses Since the Start of 2023

Apart from presenting the data for August, Immunefi outlined the dark stats in the past several months. It revealed that crypto hackers and fraudsters have stolen over $1.2 billion worth of digital assets since the beginning of the year across 211 specific events. 

July was one of the most active periods for wrongdoers, embezzling almost $320.5 million (92% more than the losses registered last month). 

Some of the notorious examples include the Multichain hack, the Curve Finance exploit, and the attack on crypto payments processor Alphapo.