Crypto losses due to hacks and scams hit $336 million in Q1: Immunefi
Quick Take
- The crypto industry lost $336 million in Q1 due to hacks and fraud, according to blockchain security firm Immunefi.
- Orbit Bridge and Munchables were the top two exploits, accounting for 43% of the losses alone, though Munchables’ funds were later recovered.
The crypto industry has clocked up $336.3 million in losses due to hacks and scams during the first quarter so far, according to the latest report from web3 bug bounty and security services platform Immunefi.
With nearly $100 billion of total value locked in web3 protocols, DeFi remains a primary target for hackers, accounting for 100% of the exploits identified by Immunefi in Q1, compared to zero for centralized (CeFi) platforms.
The majority of the losses were lost by two projects alone, accounting for a combined $144.5 million, or 43%, of the total. An $81.7 million exploit of cross-chain bridge protocol Orbit Bridge, as New Year’s celebrations were underway, represented the largest attack. January witnessed the highest monthly losses in Q1 overall at $133 million.
Book-ending the quarter, the recent $62 million exploit of Blast-based NFT game Munchables was the second-largest attack. However, the funds were recovered within 24 hours after the hacker agreed to relinquish the private keys to the wallet holding Munchables’ assets.
In total, $73.9 million (22%) of the stolen funds in Q1 were recovered from seven of the exploits. The number of attacks also dropped 17.6% from 74 in Q1 2023 to 61 in Q1 this year.
Crypto losses Q1 2024. Image: Immunefi.
However, the $336.3 million in losses represents a 23.1% decrease compared to losses of $437.5 million in the same quarter last year.
“While it's positive that overall losses have decreased, it's essential to note that DeFi faced significant challenges, accounting for 100% of total losses in Q1 2024,” Immunefi founder and CEO Mitchell Amador said. “Particularly, the ecosystem witnessed a considerable volume of losses due to private key compromises, emphasizing the critical need to secure both code and protocol infrastructure.”
Hacks dominate as Ethereum surpasses BNB Chain as most targeted network
Hacks dominated the losses in Q1, accounting for 95.6% ($321.6 million) of the total across 46 incidents, compared to cases of fraud, scams and rug pulls at 4.4% ($14.7 million) over 15 incidents.
Ethereum surpassed BNB Chain to become the most targeted chain again in Q1, with the two networks suffering the majority of the total losses at a combined 73%.
Ethereum witnessed the most individual attacks, with 33 incidents — representing 51% of the losses. BNB Chain witnessed 12 attacks, representing 22% of exploited funds. Arbitrum, Solana, Optimism, Bitcoin, Blast, Polygon, Conflux Network and Base made up the remainder of the incidents.
In December, Immunefi reported that crypto users had lost $1.8 billion to hacks and scams for the whole of 2023.
Immunefi claims to have paid more than $95 million in bounties and saved over $25 billion in user funds across protocols like Chainlink, The Graph, Synthetix and MakerDAO.
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