This Is A List Of The Biggest Crypto Money Thefts Since Bitcoin Was Discovered, All By Hackers

Hackers are acting up again, millions of dollars are missing. (photo: pixabay doc)

JAKARTA – Hackers have stolen nearly $615 million worth of cryptocurrency from a blockchain project linked to the popular online game Axie Infinity, in the latest cyber heist to hit the digital asset sector.

Ronin, a network that allows the transfer of crypto coins across various blockchains, said Tuesday that hackers stole around 173.600 ether tokens and 25.5 million USD Coin tokens, as of March 23.

At the time of the announcement, the loot was worth around 615 million US dollars due to the change in the value of the token. However, when the hack itself was worth “only” around 540 million US dollars (IDR 7.7 trillion) at the time of the hack. But the record has already made the theft one of the largest on record.

There have been several major thefts ever committed by hacking in the crypto sector since bitcoin was born in 2008.

POLY NETWORK

Hackers stole approximately US$610 million (Rp8.7 trillion) in August 2021 from Poly Network, a platform that facilitates peer-to-peer token transactions. The hacker behind the theft later returned almost all of the stolen funds.

The hack underscores a vulnerability in the emerging decentralized financial sector - DeFi -, where users lend, borrow, and store in digital tokens, and they are able to bypass traditional financial gateways such as banks and exchanges.

COINCHECK

In January 2018, hackers stole cryptocurrency that was then worth about 530 million US dollars (Rp7.5 trillion) from Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck. The thieves attacked one of Coincheck's "hot wallets" - digital folders stored online - to drain funds, drawing attention to security on the exchange.

The hack raised questions in Japan about the regulation of the digital asset market. South Korea's intelligence agency said at the time that a North Korean hacker group might be behind the theft.

MT. GOX

In one of the earliest and most notorious crypto hacks, nearly 500 million dollars worth of bitcoin was stolen and vanished from the Mt.Gox exchange in Tokyo. Even though at that time Mt. Gox, was the largest crypto exchange in the world, between 2011 and 2014.

Mt.Gox, which once handled 80% of the world's bitcoin trades, filed for bankruptcy in early 2014 after the hack was exposed. As a result of the hack around 24,000 customers lost access to their funds.

WORM HOLE

The DeFi Wormhole site was hit with a $320 million theft last month, with hackers creating 120,000 digital tokens linked to the second-largest cryptocurrency, ether.

The crypto arm of Chicago-based Jump Trading, which a year before acquired the developer behind Wormhole, later replaced the funds "to keep the community members intact and support the now growing Wormhole."