Crypto losses reach $428 mn in Q3 globally, hacks top concern

NEW DELHI: The world saw crypto losses up to $428 million in the third quarter (Q3), down 36 per cent from Q2, from hacks and frauds, a new report has shown.

An analysis of the crypto losses by bug bounty platform Immunefi found that fraud accounts for only 7 per cent of the total losses in the Q3 2022, while hacks account for 93 per cent.

"The global Web3 space was valued at $3 trillion in 2021, and with billions locked across different smart contracts, this capital represents an unparalleled and attractive opportunity for blackhat hackers," the report mentioned.

The researchers saw a loss of $399 millions to hacks across 30 specific incidents, and a loss of $29 million to fraud across nine specific incidents.

"Most of that sum was lost by 2 specific projects, Nomad Bridge, a cross-chain communication standard that enables transfers of tokens and data between chains, and Wintermute, a global crypto market maker," the report said.

In the Q3 of 2022 DeFi (decentralised finance) continues to be the key target for exploits as compared to CeFi (centralised finance).

DeFi represented 98.8 per cent of the total losses, while CeFi represented 1.2 per cent of the total losses.

The two most targeted chains in Q3 2022 were BNB Chain and Ethereum.

BNB Chain suffered the most individual attacks with 16 incidents, representing 28.6 per cent of the total losses across targeted chains, and Ethereum witnessed 13 incidents, representing 23.2 per cent, respectively.