Web3 Lost Nearly $4 Billion To Fraudsters Last Year - Will Things Improve in 2023

cryptonews.com:

The crypto industry lost approximately $4 Billion worth of digital assets to hacks, fraud, scams, and rug pulls last year, a more than 50% decline compared to over $8 billion stolen in 2021.

According to a recent report by Immunefi, a bug bounty and security services platform for the Web3 ecosystem, the crypto space lost $3,9 billion in 2022, with five major exploits totaling $2,361,000,000 alone, accounting for 59.8% of all losses in the year.  

Among the various forms of illegal activities, hacks accounted for the bulk majority of crypto losses in 2022. More specifically, hackers stole over $3. 7 billion, or more than 95% of all crypto lost in the year. Frauds, scams, and rug pulls comprised only 4.4% of the total losses. The report added:

"In 2022, DeFi continued to be the main target of successful exploits at 80.5% as compared to CeFi at 19.5% of the total losses. DeFi has suffered $3,180,023,103 in total losses in 2022, across 155 incidents. This number represents a 56.2% increase compared to 2021, when DeFi lost $2,036,015,896, in 107 incidents."

All in all, 2022 can be considered one of the worst years for the crypto ecosystem as many decentralized finance (DeFi) and centralized finance (CeFi) platforms experienced major catastrophic events. Among the more notable examples, the Terra/LUNA ecosystem imploded in May while major crypto exchange FTX collapsed in early November. 

Binance's native blockchain BNB Chain and Ethereum were the two most targeted blockchains last year, with 65 and 49 incidents, respectively. Together, BNB Chain and Ethereum represented over half of the blockchain attacks at 63.3%. FTX-backed Solanawas the third most targeted chain with 12 incidents, or 6.7% of total attacks in 2022.

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