Report Says about $16.7 Bln in Crypto Assets Stolen since 2011

Blockchain analytics company Crystal Blockchain said nearly $16.7 billion in crypto assets have been stolen since 2011, Bitcoin News reported.

Crystal Blockchain published a report in which scams, frauds, and security breaches related to cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance (DeFi) since 2011 were covered and analyzed. According to the report, about $16.7 billion in crypto assets were stolen in 461 incidents that took place in 45 countries over the past 12 years.

The report revealed that over the years from 2011 to 2023, there were 231 DeFi hacks, 135 security attacks, and 95 fraudulent schemes. Scams ranked first in terms of the value of the stolen crypto assets, worth more than $7.5 billion, followed by DeFi hacks, which resulted in a value worth $4.81 billion stolen.

Regarding the countries which saw most of the incidents, the United States topped the world’s countries, which witnessed the most incidents against crypto companies, followed by China. But China is the highest in terms of the value of the stolen assets in crypto due to the Plus Token Ponzi scam in 2019 and the Wotoken Ponzi in 2020.

The Plus Token Ponzi scam in 2019 resulted in more than $3 billion in bitcoin, while the Wotoken Ponzi in 2020 resulted in stealing $1.1 billion.

According to Crystal Blockchain’s report, the attacks against crypto-exchange security systems were the most popular till 2021, but they shifted to decentralized finance hacks. The report pointed out that the decentralized exchange hacks were 13 times more than the centralized exchange ones.

The largest DeFi hack till now was the Ronin network bridge hack in March 2022, which resulted in losing more than $650 million.

It is worth mentioning that Crystal Blockchain documented 199 incidents that resulted in stealing $4.17 billion in crypto assets in 2022.