Key Points
In September, the cryptocurrency industry experienced over $120 million in losses. This was the result of more than 20 hacking incidents. The data is courtesy of PeckShield, a blockchain forensic firm.
September’s Major Hacks
On October 1st, PeckShield reported that the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, BingX, suffered the most. It faced losses exceeding $40 million. Following BingX, Penpie lost $27 million, and Indodax lost over $21 million. Other affected platforms included DeltaPrime and Truflation, which lost $5.98 million and $5.6 million respectively.
A phishing attack targeted $spWETH signatures, resulting in a further $32.4 million loss. However, these figures were not included in the overall count. The Shezmu hack saw $4.9 million stolen, but some funds were returned. Smaller hacks also affected Onyx, BananaGun, Bedrock, and CUT, with losses ranging from $1.4 million to $3.8 million.
Despite these significant losses, the overall damage from cryptocurrency hacks in September was lower than in August. In August, the industry lost over $300 million in merely 10 different incidents. According to the latest report from the web3 bug bounty platform Immunefi, the third quarter of 2021 saw a loss of nearly $413 million in the crypto space.
This report reveals that more than $409.9 million was lost to hacks across 31 specific incidents. Additionally, $3,087,552 was lost to fraud in just three incidents. The two projects that suffered the most were WazirX, India’s crypto exchange, and BingX. WazirX was attacked and lost $235,000,000.
Immunefi’s analysts have stated that centralized finance was the primary target of successful exploits. It accounted for nearly 75% of the total losses, while decentralized finance accounted for 25.2%. The most attacked blockchain network was Ethereum, with 15 incidents. It was followed by BNB Chain (formerly Binance Smart Chain) and Coinbase’s network Base.