In 2021, losses from cryptocurrency-related crime fell, but the volume of thefts in the decentralised finance (DeFi) sector reached a record $156 million. is stated in CipherTrace’s latest report.
In the first five months of the year, cryptocurrency users lost $432 million to criminals. For comparison: criminals stole $1.9 billion in 2020, and the figure was $4.5 billion the year before.
Experts link the rise in crimes in the sector to the sector’s growing popularity. According to DeFi Pulse, the value of assets locked in DeFi protocols reached $80.93 billion. In the last 30 days the figure rose by more than 30%.
On May 12, the DeFi protocol xToken lost $25 million due to a hacking attack. The attacker exploited two vulnerabilities in the project.
An unknown drained $30 million from liquidity pools of the Spartan Protocol project.
In April, the project Uranium Finance lost $50 million in Ethereum. The hack occurred just one month after the platform’s launch.