It has been revealed by TRM Labs that a record $3.7 billion worth of crypto funds have been stolen the past year. Of this, 80% have been traced back to attacks against DeFi, as per the research report published by the company. The ten mega hacks identified in the analysis represent 75% of the total amount of funds stolen over the past few years.
A Hacker Stole $3 Billion in Crypto Funds from DeFi
In the findings of a recent study by TRM Labs, it was found that 3.7 billion dollars worth of crypto funds were fraudulently obtained by cybercriminals in 2022. According to the analysis, 80% of the stolen amount, or $3 billion, was obtained through decentralized finance (DeFi) attacks, which constitute a large amount of the stolen amount.
The ten "mega hacks" in the last year refer to exploits of more than $100 million. A total of $3.7 billion was stolen throughout 2022 — nearly 75% of that amount being attributed to these mega hacks.
More than $540 million was stolen from Ronin Bridge, an Ethereum sidechain developed for the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, during the Lazarus Group's attack on Ronin Bridge, the largest hack of the year. In the world of cybercrime, the Lazarus Group is a known organization believed to be controlled by North Korea's government.
Response of Regulators
With profound concern, regulators have been forced to act fiercely in the last couple of months to protect crypto consumers. This is due to the unprecedented rise in attacks on Defi. To illustrate, after the Ronin exploit was uncovered, the U.S. Treasury Department's Foreign Asset Control took action, identifying and tracking the stolen funds using blockchain intelligence. In addition to sanctions on the wallet addresses to which the funds were transferred, OFAC also sanctioned crypto mixers, such as blender.io and Tornado Cash. Hackers used these mixers to launder money and transfer it to these wallet addresses.
The crypto ecosystem is also targeted by a large army of cyber criminals, with other global regulators adopting specific measures to fight this threat. There have been several proposals by the central bank of Singapore concerning the ban on debt-financed and leveraged crypto trading, including trades made with credit cards by retail users.
There has also been a troubling trend in stablecoins, particularly after the colossal collapse of the algorithmic stablecoins TerraUSD and LUNA. These coins have been the focus of global regulators in recent months. Many crypto projects, such as Celsius Network and Voyager Digital, suffered a knock-on effect following the collapse of the market in recent months.
In November, when the crypto exchange FTX fell to its knees, it was possibly the most significant collapse of the year. Over $8 billion of its users' money got missing from this exchange, a sum that is unlikely to ever be recouped. FTX's contagion spread rapidly over the past month, with many experts predicting the devastation will be even more severe shortly.
