More Than IDR 454.8 Trillion Cryptocurrency Stolen In 1,101 Attacks Over The Last 10 Years

Illustration of crypto fraud. (photo: dock. pexels)

JAKARTA - More than 30 billion US dollars (Rp454.8 trillion) in cryptocurrency have been stolen in 1,101 incidents recorded since 2012 until now. This was disclosed in the SlowMist report on July 7th.

According to the blockchain security firm, the five most common types of attacks that occur are smart contract vulnerabilities, tug pull fraud, flash loan attacks, fraud, and private key leaks. This amount of loss represents about 2.5% of the current total cryptocurrency market capitalization.

Of the total recorded incidents, there were 118 attacks on the exchange, 217 attacks on the Ethereum ecosystem, 162 attacks on the BNB Smart Chain ecosystem, 119 attacks on the EOS ecosystem, and 85 attacks related to nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The biggest loss occurred in attacks on the exchange, with more than 10 billion US dollars (IDR 151.6 trillion) missing over the past decade.

Attacks with losses of more than US$1 billion (Rp15 trillion) peaked in the early 2010s and from 2019 to 2021. Security incidents have tended to decline since 2022, this is consistent with other reports.

At the start of Bitcoin's development, a striking attack among others was an attack on Mt. Gox in 2014 and an attack on Bitfinex in 2016. Mt. Gox is the world's largest Bitcoin exchange at the time, but then filed for bankruptcy in 2014 after finding that 850,000 BTC (25.2 billion US dollars at the time) owned by its customers had been stolen through attacks that had been going on quietly for several years. The exchange has since managed to return 200,000 BTC (6.1 billion US dollars) and is re-distributing it to creditors.

Likewise, in 2016, Bitfinex experienced a security breach resulting in the loss of 119,576 BTC worth about US$70 million (Rp1 trillion) at that time or US$3.7 billion at this time. On February 8, 2022, the stolen 94,000 BTC was successfully returned by a special agent working for the United States Department of Justice.