As if the industry’s pessimism wasn’t enough, it’s long been plagued by hackers and scammers wanting to make a quick cash. To make matters worse, it appears that tracing and retrieving lost assets is becoming more difficult than ever as attackers employ increasingly complex ways.
In Q2 2023, the sector lost $204.3 million to hacks, frauds, and rug pulls. Only $4.9 million of the amount was recovered, which was much less than the $6.9 million recovered in Q2 2022. The good news is that losses in the second quarter were 55% lower than in Q1 2023, when the sector suffered massive losses of $462.3 million due to hacks and scams, with the Euler Finance flash loan attack accounting for 42.4% of the first quarter’s losses, according to REKT’s database.
According to a research by web3’s “super app” and antivirus software De.Fi, which included supporting data from the REKT database, the industry has recovered around $183 million, or nearly 28%, of the $666.5 million it has lost to scams and hacks so far this year.
Q2 saw more than 100 exploits
According to the report, there were 110 instances of “scams, exploits, or unintended losses” during this quarter. The three largest examples were the $35 million Atomic Wallet breach, Fintoch’s alleged ponzi scheme at $31.6 million, and MEV Boost’s $26.1 million loss due to the software flaw that was exploited. Nearly half of the quarter’s overall losses, or $92.8 million, were attributable to these three.
