Crypto losses to hackers topped $313 million in August

Last month, the crypto space experienced $313 million in losses due to more than ten different hacks.

Of the total stolen funds, 93.5% were lost in two major phishing attacks that occurred during this time.

August cases

According to a post by blockchain security firm PeckShield, the two incidents combined for a loss of around $293.4 million.

In the first occurrence, an unknown whale lost more than 4,000 bitcoins (BTC), worth an estimated $238 million at the time, after falling victim to a phishing scheme. Funds were reportedly moved across multiple platforms, including THORChain and Railgun, making recovery nearly impossible.

In the second attack, another major crypto holder saw around $55.4 million in Dai (DAI) transferred from his wallet without his authorization, with the perpetrator allegedly exchanging the funds for their Ethereum equivalent (ETH).

Additionally, the Ronin network was also the victim of a major exploit. Although $12 million was recovered from the attacker, $5.1 million worth of unauthorized crypto transactions were still lost.

Another notable episode involved decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Nexera, which suffered a theft of $1.83 million due to smart contract manipulation.

An additional report from bug bounty platform Immunefi shows that since last month, the crypto industry has lost $1.21 billion in digital assets due to hackers and carpet pulling year-to-date (YTD). Interestingly, this particular analysis characterized crypto losses in August due to events as some of the lowest in 2024.

He said the industry lost about $15 million due to five separate incidents, an amount that was more than 94 percent less than what was lost in July.

WazirX still in news

Of course, the main cause of the huge amount lost in July was the WazirX hack. The Indian crypto exchange lost $234.9 million from one of its multisig wallets. In response to the massive breach, the company is now implementing a phased plan to restore its financial operations.

The beleaguered exchange recently provided an update, where it announced that it had filed for a stay in Singapore’s High Court under the City’s Insolvency, Restructuring and Winding Up Act 2018.

A moratorium is a legal protection under the law of Singapore, where WazirX is registered, that protects an applicant from actions by creditors, such as liquidation proceedings and enforcement of security. During the moratorium, these legal actions are suspended until it ends.

WazirX further explained in an accompanying blog post that he envisions a planned restructuring where the impact of the exploit will be allocated proportionally among users classified as unsecured creditors.

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