December DeFi exploits were the lowest in 2022: Finance Redefined

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week.

The end of 2022 saw the least value of stolen funds from DeFi, with $62 million worth of exploits in December. While the figure might seem a relief given the multiple bridge hacks and hundreds of millions of dollars stolen this year, cybersecurity experts have warned that the ecosystem would see no decrease in exploits, flash loans or exit scams in 2023.

Lido protocol overtook MakerDAO to have the highest total value locked (TVL) in the DeFi ecosystem. In other news, Mango Markets hacker Avraham Eisenberg was detained pending trial.

The start of the new year saw a GMX whale hacked for $3.5 million worth of GMX tokens. The hackers took control of 82,519 GMX tokens, exchanged the assets for 2,627 Ether (ETH), and then transferred the assets to the Ethereum network using Hop Protocol and Across Protocol.

The top 100 DeFi tokens started the year on a bullish note, with most of the tokens trading in the green on the weekly charts.

$62 million crypto stolen in December was the ‘lowest monthly figure’ in 2022: CertiK

Cryptocurrency hackers and exploiters seemingly slowed down for the 2022 holidays, with December seeing $62.2 million worth of cryptocurrencies stolen. It was the “lowest monthly figure” of the year, according to CertiK.

On Dec. 31, the blockchain security company tweeted a list of the month’s most significant attacks. It highlighted the $15.5 million worth of exit scams as the method that exploited the most value over the month, followed by the $7.6 million worth of flash loan-based exploits.

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No ‘respite’ for exploits, flash loans or exit scams in 2023: Cybersecurity firm

The new year is a fresh start for malicious actors in the crypto space and 2023 won’t likely see a slowdown in scams, exploits and hacks, according to CertiK. The blockchain security company told Cointelegraph its expectations for the year ahead regarding bad actors in the space.

CertiK pointed to the “devastating” exploits on cross-chain bridges in 2022. Six of the 10 largest exploits during the year were bridge exploits, amounting to around $1.4 billion.

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Lido overtakes MakerDAO and now has the highest TVL in DeFi

Liquid staking protocol Lido Finance has benefited most from the Ethereum merge in September, with its TVL now sitting at the top position among other DeFi protocols.

According to data from DefiLlama, Lido’s liquid staking protocol now commands $5.9 billion in TVL, overtaking MakerDAO’s $5.89 billion and Aave’s $3.7 billion.

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Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg detained pending trial

In a new update to the Mango Markets exploit saga, the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico has issued an order of detention to the infamous Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg.

After holding a detention hearing, United States Magistrate Judge Bruce McGiverin decided that it was necessary to detain Eisenberg for several reasons. According to court documents, there is no condition or combination of conditions of Eisenberg’s release that will reasonably assure his appearance as required.

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DeFi market overview

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total market value remained below $40 billion this past week, trading at about $38.5 billion at the time of writing. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView show that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a volatile and bullish week, with nearly all of the tokens trading in the green.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.