In 2023, a report from blockchain security platform Immunefi on December 28 revealed that the Web3 ecosystem encountered significant challenges, witnessing a total loss of $1.8 billion due to hacking and scams. The Lazarus Group, linked to North Korea, was identified as the source of 17% of these losses.
The most impactful incident of the year involved the peer-to-peer trading platform Mixin Network, resulting in over $200 million in losses for cryptocurrency investors. Following closely, the lending platform Euler Finance experienced the second-largest hack with losses amounting to $197 million, and in the third position was the $126-million hack of the cross-chain bridge protocol Multichain.
Law enforcement attributed approximately $309 million in losses to the Lazarus Group, encompassing incidents like the Atomic Wallet hack ($100 million), CoinEx ($70 million), Alphapo ($60 million), Stake, CoinsPaid, and others.
Notably, the majority of losses, totaling $1.6 billion, were a result of hacks and exploits, whereas only $103 million was associated with clearly identifiable fraud schemes such as rug pulls.
Among these losses, $1.3 billion occurred in protocols claiming to be decentralized, contrasting with the $409 million in losses from centralized finance (CeFi) crypto protocols, as indicated in the report. Remarkably, the reported $1.8 billion in losses represented more than a 52% decline from the previous year when Chainalysis reported over $3.8 billion in stolen funds.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko
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