Blockchain hackers stole over $2.5 billion in the first three quarters of 2022 despite slowdown in crypto market

Over the past decade, hackers and scammers have stolen over $12 billion in crypto assets. Unfortunately, the trend has accelerated rapidly in 2022. In the first nine months of this year, companies and investors have lost billions to cyber criminals even though the cryptocurrency market is experiencing a deep slump.

According to the data analyzed by the Atlas VPN team, blockchain hackers stole $2.5 billion in three quarters of 2022. In total, hackers got away with nearly $483 million in Q3 2022. Despite that, blockchain hacks fell by 43% in the last quarter compared to Q2.

The Ethereum ecosystem suffered the most significant losses of $348 million over 11 hacks. The Polkadot ecosystem takes second place on the most significant losses list. The Polkadot crypto projects lost $52 million in just 2 hack events.

Next is the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) ecosystem, which was hacked 13 times and lost $28 million in crypto. BSC-related crypto projects suffered the most hacks out of all. Other crypto-related projects accumulated $29.5 million worth of crypto losses throughout 10 hacks.

Cybersecurity writer at Atlas VPN Vilius Kardelis shares his thoughts on blockchain hacks: “Blockchain technology has been a great example of how security principles in financial transactions and information transmission are revolutionizing. Despite that, the technology is still susceptible to cybercriminals who exploit it for their benefit. Many crypto projects get hacked, or scammers set up rug pulls to steal from investors.”

Blockchain hacks fall significantly. While cryptocurrencies live through the bear market, hackers are also less active.

Since the start of the year, the total cryptocurrency market cap has decreased by 58%. Most crypto prices have been falling for months, which caused cybercriminals to pull away from performing hacks. After the significant crypto crash in June, blockchain hacks continued to fall from 24 in July to 21 in August, and only 10 incidents in September.

When comparing the third and second quarters of 2022, blockchain hacks fell by 43%, from 96 in Q2 to 55 events in Q3. Numbers from Q3 2021, compared to the same quarter this year, also show a decrease in blockchain incidents of 28%. If cryptocurrencies remain in the bear market, the number of hacks in Q4 will likely be similar to Q3.

You can read the full report here.