June’s Crypto Heist: Hackers Stole $176.2M, Pushing Q2 Losses Over $570M

In the crypto space, scamming has always been one of the main routes through which unsuspecting traders and exchanges lose massive amounts of digital assets, with the potential to cause lifelong impoverishment for the affected parties. While some attempts at stealing investors’ valuables might seem mitigated via sophisticated security measures, most have little or no traces of recovering lost assets.

To worsen the situation, hackers are consistently devising new means of breaching established security protocols and being ahead of cyber security experts to ensure they remain active in swindling crypto holders’ valuables.

June Records More Than 20 Hacks Estimated Around $172 Million

In June alone, “PeckShieldArt,” a verified X handle renowned for tracking and reporting crypto scams and other on-chain activities related to security breaches, reported that Hackers stole an estimated $172 million via more than 20 successful scamming attempts in the just concluded month.

Notably, the reported $172 million loss implies a marked decrease of about 54% from May’s $385 million losses. Documenting June’s report on X, PeckShieldArt remarked, “June 2024 witnessed 20+ hacks in the crypto space, resulting in ~$176.2 million in losses; this marks a decrease of 54.2% from May 2024 (w/ ~$385m in hackers’ profits).”

BtcTurk Suffers More Than 50% of Crypto Thefts in June

Per PeckShieldArt’s statistical summary, the Turkish trading platform BtcTurk suffered the highest loss from every documented crypto theft in June. The data revealed that BtcTurk recorded losses running into $100.25 million via Centralised Finance (CeFi) networks.

According to one of our previous news articles dated June 22, 2024, the hacker in the BTC Turk scam escapade stole AVAX tokens from the Turkish trading platform and converted them to Bitcoin on Coinbase and Binance, accumulating about 709 BTC.

British exchange Lykke suffered the second largest loss with over $22 million stolen assets via the CeFi route, just like BTC Turk. UwU Lend, Holograph, and Velocore completed the top five, with losses running into $19.4 million, $14.4 million, and $6.8 million, respectively.

Interestingly, contrary to the CeFi path, UwU Lend, Holograph, and Velocore losses happened via Decentralized Finance (DeFi) routes.

#PeckShieldAlert June 2024 witnessed 20+ hacks in the crypto space, resulting in ~$176.2 million in losses. This marks a decrease of 54.2% from May 2024 (w/ ~$385m in hackers' profits).#Top 5 Hacks:#Btctruk: $100.25 million (CeFi)#Lykke: $22 million (CeFi)#UwULend: $19.4… pic.twitter.com/83XzWf82kw

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) July 1, 2024

$572.7 Million Forfeited To Crypto Thefts In 2024’s Q2

In an earlier report by Immunefi, a leading Web3 bug bounty platform, this year’s second quarter (Q2) registered losses of about $572.7 million from 72 successful crypto theft attempts. The bug bounty platform noted that most of the scam attempts targeted more CeFi platforms, contributing 70% losses valued at about $401.4 million relative to DeFi outlets, contributing 30% of the total losses in Q2 at about $171.3 million.

In addition, the reported losses in Q2 implied a significant over 70% increase from the forfeited $336.3 million in Q1. The Japanese exchange DMM suffered the highest losses in Q2, with about $305 million in lost crypto assets.

Contrary to PeckShieldArt’s statistics, Immunefi documented a $55 million loss for BtcTurk in Q2. However, other affected exchanges seem to tally with PeckShieldArt’s values.

Bottom Line

The insights from the two statistical crypto theft trackers’ platforms underscore the rampant rate of attempted scamming activities in the crypto space. Aside from exposing the spiking scam rate in the crypto industry, the write-up also pointed out CeFi platforms as more susceptible to hacking than DeFi settings.