Crypto

January Crypto Exploit Losses See Nearly 93% Year-Over-Year Decline

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Aside from January’s bullish rally in the crypto market, there was more positive news from the industry as the month saw a drop in losses from exploits compared to the same period last year.

According to data from blockchain security firm PeckShield on January 31, there were $8.8 million in losses from crypto exploits in January.

There were 24 exploits during the month, with $2.6 million worth of crypto sent to mixers such as Tornado Cash. The breakdown of assets sent to mixers includes 1,200 Ether (ETH) and about 2,668 BNB (BNB).

January’s numbers are 92.7% lower than the $121.4 million lost to exploits in January 2022.

PeckShield reported that the biggest exploit of the past month, accounting for 68% of the total, was on DeFi lending and borrowing platform LendHub which lost $6 million on January 12.

Other notable exploits of the month include Thoreum Finance which lost $580,000 and Midas Capital which was exploited for $650,000 in a flash loan attack.

The January figure is also down 68% from December 2022, which saw nearly $27.3 million in operating losses, according to PeckShield.

Other losses not included in the data include a $2.6 million rug pull on the FCS BNB Chain token, according to DeFiYield’s Rekt database. There was an additional $150,000 lost to fake BONK tokens and a $200,000 rug pull on the Doglands Metaverse gaming platform, DeFiYield reported.

A phishing attack against decentralized trading protocol GMX on January 4 also cost one victim up to $4 million.

Related: Crypto wallets fight scammers with transaction insights and blocklists

Despite the relatively quiet month, blockchain security firm CertiK told Cointelegraph in early January that there were there is unlikely to be a slowdown attacks and exploits this year.

The company also reported that the $62 million worth of crypto stolen in December was the “lowest monthly figure” in 2022.

At the end of last year, the ten greatest achievements of 2022 resulted in a $2.1 billion stolen from cryptographic protocols.