Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly source of indispensable insights into decentralized finance (DeFi) – a newsletter meticulously curated to deliver the most significant updates from the past week.
While the DeFi industry is often synonymous with hacks and exploits, the losses from these incidents have seen a significant decline of 67% in April, amounting to $60 million, compared to the previous month of March, which witnessed a staggering $187 million in stolen funds. Notably, Hundred Finance hackers have made their first move of stolen funds almost a year after the initial exploit.
In other news, Stacks, the Bitcoin layer-2 platform, has experienced its highest number of active users as interest in Bitcoin DeFi, or BTCFi, has surged.
The top 100 DeFi tokens had a bearish week initially, but ended with a burst of bullish momentum. However, the total value locked in DeFi protocols remains below $90 billion.
Losses from crypto hacks plunge 67% in April to $60 million
The combined value of cryptocurrency compromised by hacking has plummeted by an impressive 67% in April, amounting to $60.2 million. This marks a significant reduction in crypto attacks and represents the first substantial decline since 2024.
This sharp decline is in stark contrast to the $187.6 million that was hacked in March, and is considerably lower than the $360.8 million worth of digital assets that were hacked in February. These figures were reported by on-chain security firm PeckShield in a May 1 post.
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Stacks active accounts reach record high amid growing interest in Bitcoin DeFi
Stacks, the leading Bitcoin layer-2 network, has achieved an all-time high in active users, driven by the increasing interest in Bitcoin-native DeFi.
During April, Stacks recorded a new all-time high of 122,497 active accounts. These active accounts are addresses that have conducted at least one transaction. This information was shared in a May 2 post by Signal 21, a Bitcoin (BTC) data provider.
The record-breaking number of accounts signifies a growing interest in BTCFi, and comes just over a week after the 2024 Bitcoin halving and the launch of Runes, a new protocol for issuing fungible tokens on the Bitcoin network.
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Hundred Finance hacker moves stolen assets a year after $7 million exploit
After a year of dormancy, the hacker responsible for stealing $7.4 million from the DeFi protocol Hundred Finance has finally begun transferring the crypto assets.
On May 1, the hacker withdrew Ether (ETH) and Tether (USDT) worth approximately $800,000 from Curve’s decentralized exchange. This action was taken after the hacker had provided liquidity on the platform over a year ago.
Upon withdrawing the funds, the hacker converted USDT and other cryptocurrencies into ETH, resulting in an increase of over $1 million in the exploiter’s ETH holdings.
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Curve Finance awards dev $250,000 for finding reentrancy vulnerability
A cybersecurity researcher known as Marco Croc from Kupia Security has been awarded $250,000 for discovering a vulnerability that has historically allowed hackers to siphon off millions of dollars from cryptocurrency protocols.
This pseudonymous researcher identified a reentrancy vulnerability within the DeFi protocol Curve Finance. In a post, he explained how this bug could be exploited to manipulate balances and withdraw funds from liquidity pools.
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DeFi market overview
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reveals that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bearish week, with most of them trading in the red on the weekly charts. As a result, the total value locked in DeFi protocols has fallen below $90 billion.
Thank you for reading our summary of the most impactful DeFi developments from this week. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights, and educational content about this rapidly evolving space.