$3.9 billion lost in the cryptocurrency market in 2022: Report

Immunefi, a bug bounty and security services platform for the Web3 ecosystem, published a report on Jan. 6 revealing that the crypto industry lost a total of 3.9 billion dollars in 2022. 

According to the report, hacks were found to be the main cause of the losses, accounting for 95.6% of the total, with fraud, scams, and rug pulls comprising the remaining 4.4%. Immunefi also found that decentralized finance (DeFi) was the most targeted sector, suffering 80.5% in losses, compared to centralized finance (CeFi) which suffered a loss of 19.5%. According to the report:

“DeFi has suffered $3,180,023,103 in total losses in 2022, across 155 incidents. This number represents a 56.2% increase compared to 2021, when DeFi lost $2,036,015,896, in 107 incidents.”

BNB and Ethereum were the most targeted chains, with BNB Chain surpassing Ethereum to become the most targeted in 2022. In Q4 of 2022, the industry suffered losses of approximately 1.6 billion dollars, with DeFi being the main target at 57.6% and CeFi at 42.4%.

Mitchell Amador, CEO of Immunefi shared:

“By proactively identifying and addressing vulnerabilities, we can protect the community from harm and build trust in the field. As we make the industry safer, everything else can flourish.”

Related: Macroeconomic data points toward intensifying pain for crypto investors in 2023

On Jan 5th, Cointelegraph reported in the Finance Redefined newsletter that December DeFi exploits were the lowest in 2022, according to on-chain monitoring and bug bounty company, CertiK. It appears cryptocurrency hackers and exploiters may have slowed down for the 2022 holidays.

In December 2022, $62 million worth of funds were stolen from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Although this figure was lower than in previous months, cybersecurity experts warned that the ecosystem will not see a decrease in exploits, flash loans, or exit scams in 2023.