In a shocking turn of events, the Mixin Network hack has propelled the total damage caused by cryptocurrency market hacks to a staggering $685.5 million in the third quarter of 2023, marking this period as the most financially devastating in the crypto world to date.
According to the quarterly report by Immunefi, the amount stolen due to crypto attacks in Q3 2023 surged by 59.9% compared to the same period last year, reaching an unprecedented $685.5 million in losses. This represents the largest quarterly loss so far in 2023, with the total cryptocurrency market suffering a loss of $1.4 billion due to security breaches and fraud throughout the year.
Remarkably, just two incidents involving Mixin Network ($200 million) and Multichain ($126 million) accounted for nearly half of the losses in the quarter.
Top 10 Hacks and Losses in Q3 2023 (Source: Immunefi):
The report indicates that 30% of these attacks were linked to the notorious Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking group. In Q3, they stole a total of $208.6 million from projects including CoinEx, Alphapo, Stake, and CoinsPaid.
Ethereum continued to be the most targeted blockchain, accounting for 35 out of 76 incidents (42.7% of losses), followed by BNB Chain with 25 incidents (30.5% of losses). Layer-2 solution Base entered the list with 4 consecutive incidents, while Optimism and other blockchains accounted for 3 and 13 incidents, respectively.
Incidents on Different Blockchains in Q3 2023 (Source: Immunefi):
The primary cause of these attacks remained security breaches (hacks), with 49 incidents causing losses of $662.9 million, constituting a significant 66% increase compared to the same period last year. Fraud, scams, and rug pulls accounted for $22.6 million in losses, representing only 3.3% of the total and a 23.9% decrease from the previous year.
If we look at August 2023 alone, a staggering 72.9% of all attacks were targeted at DeFi, resulting in losses of $499.8 million, while CeFi made up the remaining 27.1%, with losses of $185.5 million.
The report also reveals that out of the $685.5 million stolen, $61.2 million (8.9%) has been successfully recovered by six projects. Notably, Curve Finance managed to retrieve $5.3 million out of the $24 million that was stolen. Additionally, Mixin Network offered a $20 million bug bounty to hackers as an attempt to recover the stolen funds.
Read more:
- Breaking: HTX Global (Huobi) Loses $7.9 Million In Security Breach
- CoinEx Faces Major Security Breach: Over $27M Potentially Compromised Across ETH, TRX, MATIC, And XRP Wallets
- CoinW Exchange Hacked, Suffering $13 Million In Losses