In 2024, the cryptocurrency sector has faced record losses exceeding $2.114 billion, representing a 72% increase over the previous year.
Centralized Finance (CeFi) Incidents
Centralized exchanges have seen a dramatic rise in hacking incidents, increasing nearly 1,000% year-on-year. Significant security breaches in Q2 2024 greatly contributed to these figures. The DMM Bitcoin exchange lost approximately $305 million, and Turkish BtcTurk reported $55 million in losses. In Q2 alone, centralized exchanges accounted for around $401 million in losses from five major incidents.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Trends
Despite the overall increase in crypto losses, DeFi platforms showed some resilience by decreasing losses by 25% year-on-year in Q2 2024. However, DeFi still faced significant challenges, losing $171.3 million across 62 incidents. Ethereum and BNB Chain remained the primary targets for these exploits.
Vulnerability Breakdown
From January to September 2024, there were a total of 131 reported incidents, representing a 197% increase compared to the 44 incidents in the same timeframe in 2023. The breakdown of incidents includes:
- Smart Contract Exploits: 79 incidents - Access Control Violations: 51 incidents
Access control vulnerabilities surged to $1.62 billion in 2024, a 99% increase from $742.6 million in the same period in 2023. In contrast, losses from smart contract vulnerabilities decreased by 19%, totaling $380.4 million this year compared to $429.6 million last year.
The surge in losses and incidents indicates a critical need for the cryptocurrency industry to enhance its security protocols. Cyvers stresses the importance of adopting real-time threat detection technologies and evolving regulatory frameworks.
