Crypto Losses in Q3 Decrease 28% Compared to Q2

Key Points:

• The crypto industry lost $413 million to hacks and fraud, with centralized finance accounting for nearly 75% of the crypto losses in Q3 2024.
• Major hacks included $235 million stolen from WazirX and $52 million from BingX, making up 70% of the total losses.

As per the latest report from Immunefi, the cryptocurrency sector suffered an extra $413 million in Q3 2024 on financial losses arising from a series of recent hacker attacks and fraud.

Read more: North Korean Crypto Hackers Are Targeting ETF Companies for Scam

Crypto Losses in Q3 Drop 28% Amid Ongoing Hacks and Fraud

Crypto losses in Q3 represent an uptick of a significant 28% decline compared with $573 million lost during the second quarter and a 40% drop from $686 million lost during the third quarter of 2023.

Of these losses, $410 million came as a result of 31 hacking incidents, while three fraud cases attributed to $3 million. CeFi took the biggest blow in this quarter, contributing 74.8% ($309 million) even though DeFi had most of the incidents. The Ethereum and BNB blockchains were the most popular blockchains hackers targeted, with 44.1% and 23.5%, respectively.

The largest breach belonged to India’s WazirX crypto exchange, which lost a total of $235 million after hackers compromised its private keys, forcing the exchange to freeze withdrawals and trading on July 18.

Currently, WazirX is seeking court protection in Singapore as it works on a financial restructuring. Another huge attack was recorded by Singapore-based exchange BingX, which saw $52 million in losses bringing the total together for nearly 70% of the total crypto losses in Q3.

CeFi Takes the Biggest Monetary Blow Despite More Frequent DeFi Attacks

While the incidents were more frequent in DeFi, CeFi bore a greater monetary blow with 31 out of the 34 incidents reported by Immunefi in decentralized finance protocols, but the higher value of the centralized platforms led to a greater financial impact.

July was the biggest month for crypto losses in Q3, with $282 million, but that fell sharply to just $15 million in August, before rebounding to $116 million in September. All in all, $14.9 m or 3.6% of the stolen funds, were recovered, including $10 m from the Ronin Network exploit and $4.9 m from ShezmuTech.

The incident brings losses from hacks and fraud in the crypto industry this year to date to over $1.3 billion, down 4% from the same period in 2023.