<p class=”MsoNormal text-align-justify”>The worth of cryptocurrency stolen by hackers within the first 11 months of the year rose by 37% to $4.3 billion in 2022, a new research by cybersecurity and data privacy firm, Privacy Affairs, has found.</p><p class=”MsoNormal text-align-justify”>The firm noted that the collapse of FTX is the largest cryptocurrency scam so far this year with about $1-2 billion in customer funds unaccounted for. </p><p class=”MsoNormal”>According to Privacy Affairs, of the 11 biggest cryptocurrency scams committed this year, the top five are <a href=”https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/ftx-the-rise-the-fall-and-the-reaction/” target=”_blank” rel=”follow”>the failure of FTX</a>, the Axie Infinity’s
Ronin Network <a href=”https://www.financemagnates.com/thought-leadership/after-axie-infinity-hack-will-other-play-2-earn-games-be-hacked-soon/” target=”_blank” rel=”follow”>attack in March</a> ($615 million), the Wormhole crypto bridge hack in February ($320 million), the JuicyFields.io scam in July ($273 million) and the Unique-Exchange.co/PARAIBA world scam
also in July ($267 million). </p><p class=”MsoNormal”>Others are the Nomad cross-chain bridge attack in August ($190 million),
the Beanstalk DeFi project flash loan attack in April ($182 million), the Wintermute hack in September ($160
million), the Elrond blockchain exchange hack in June ($113 million), the Harmony
Horizon Bridge hack in June ($100 million) and the Mango Market flash loan attack in October
($100 million).</p><p class=”MsoNormal”>Country
Analysis </p><p class=”MsoNormal”>According to the cybersecurity firm, young people between the ages of 20 and 40 are more
susceptible to scams that are perpetrated via Instagram (32%), Facebook
(26%), WhatsApp (9%) and Telegram (7%). The firm also found that Bitcoin (70%),
Tether (10%) and Ether (9%) are the top coins scammers choose for their fraudulent activities.</p><p class=”MsoNormal”>Giving
a further breakdown of the numbers, the firm noted that DeFi
protocols accounted for 97% of all stolen cryptocurrency during the first
quarter of the year. </p><p class=”MsoNormal”>When
compared country by country, Americans lost $329 million to crypto scammers
during the first quarter of this year. Additionally, Australian investors lost $166
million throughout 2022. On top of that, investors in Hong Kong have lost $50 to
crypto fraud since the start of the year. </p><p class=”MsoNormal”>Crypto
Loan Scam and Rug Pulls</p><p class=”MsoNormal”>Meanwhile,
the number of cases of crypto flash loan schemes is on the rise. A flash loan
attack occurs when a scammer exploits a platform’s smart contract security to
borrow huge amounts of money with no collateral. </p><p class=”MsoNormal”>“In
Q2 2022, 27 flash loan attacks resulted in a loss of over $308 million. A flash
loan attack on the cryptocurrency trading platform Mango Market resulted in a
loss of $100 million in October 2022. Statistics show flash loan attacks
increased 66.7% in Q2 from Q1 2022,” Miklos Zoltan, founder of Privacy Affairs
explained. </p><p class=”MsoNormal”>Furthermore,
the firm noted that while investors lost about $2.8 billion to rug pulls last year, with over $2.6 billion engulfed by the Turkish crypto exchange, Thodex, 2022 has seen over 188,000 rug pulls on various blockchains such as BNB and
Ethereum.</p><p class=”MsoNormal”>“In
Q2 2022, rug pulls generated a total loss of $37.46 million. In July 2022,
investors lost $32.7m after Raccoon Network pulled off an exit scam on its
IDO/fundraising project,” Zoltan explained.</p>
This article was written by Solomon Oladipupo at www.financemagnates.com.
