Report: 77% of Hacked Cryptocurrencies Fail to Recover in Value

Most hacked cryptocurrencies struggle to regain their value post-exploit, according to a report by Immunefi, as reported by Cointelegraph.

Over 77.8% of projects attacked by hackers experienced a sustained negative impact on the price of their native coins for six months following the incident.

Moreover, 51.1% of such tokens lost more than 50% of their value within half a year.

According to Mitchell Amador, founder and CEO of Immunefi, hacked protocols bear the brunt of the damage even after the attack:

“Millions lost due to a hack immediately lead to even greater losses caused by market impact and dependency [on other projects], as well as many months spent recovering your emotionally shattered team and operational activities.”

However, some cryptocurrencies become more successful after a hack. Amador notes that tokens with more established teams, belonging to large projects, are historically more resilient to exploits.

“Recovered tokens include projects like BNB Chain, SushiSwap, THORChain, Olympus, and Optimism. All of them are either huge ecosystems themselves, like BNB Chain or Optimism, or are long-standing protocols, such as SushiSwap, which have a dedicated community,” the researcher emphasized.

The expert added that CeFi infrastructure has become the biggest vulnerability, likely to account for the majority of crypto industry losses in 2024. Previously, hackers primarily targeted the DeFi segment.

“Infrastructure compromises are generally the most devastating hacks in the crypto world. For instance, a private key leak will lead to the theft of all controlled funds,” Amador added.

Earlier in the year, Chainalysis noted that in the first half of the year, attackers stole $1.6 billion in cryptocurrencies, shifting their focus to centralized exchanges.

The largest incident was the hack of the Japanese platform DMM Bitcoin for $305 million.