Losses From Crypto Hacks and Scams Soar in 2024, Exceeding $3,010,000,000: Blockchain Security Firm

Losses from crypto hacks and scams surged in 2024, according to the blockchain security firm PeckShield.

The firm says the total value loss in the crypto sector last year exceeded $3.01 billion, a 15% increase from the 2023 total.

That number includes $2.15 billion stolen in hacks and $834.5 million purloined via scams. PeckShield also notes that $488.5 million worth of looted crypto was recovered.

Despite the surge in crypto losses last year, 2024 still wasn’t as prolific as 2022, which clocked $3.6 billion worth of value loss.

Last year’s largest heist happened in May when North Korean hackers stole more than $300 million worth of Bitcoin ( BTC ) from the Japanese crypto exchange DMM.

American and Japanese government investigators say the breach began in March when a hacker posed as a recruiter and sent a malicious GitHub link to an employee of Ginco, a DMM partner company. After the employee copied the link to their personal account, a North Korean group known as “TraderTraitor” gained system access and later impersonated the worker to infiltrate DMM’s communications.

The hackers then intercepted and modified a legitimate transaction request from DMM, authorities said.

In December, the blockchain security firm Chainalysis noted that North Korean hackers stole more crypto in 2024 than any prior year, looting $1.34 billion worth of digital assets across 47 incidents.

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