In April, the total value of cryptocurrency compromised by hacking experienced a significant decline of 67%, reaching $60.2 million. This marks a notable reduction in crypto attacks and is the first major decrease seen in 2024.
The sharp decline from the $187.6 million hacked in March is striking, and it pales in comparison to the $360.8 million worth of hacked digital assets in February, as reported by on-chain security firm Peckshield on May 1.
The $60.2 million stolen in April resulted from 40 individual hacking incidents. Hacks and exploits have been the primary issues undermining trust in cryptocurrencies and hindering mainstream adoption.
The largest incident in April was the $44.7 million hack on Hedgey Finance, a token infrastructure platform. The hackers exploited a vulnerability in Hedgey’s token claim contract on the Arbitrum Network on April 19.
The second-largest hacking incident occurred on Fixed Float crypto exchange, where $3 million worth of crypto was stolen due to a vulnerability with a third-party service provider used by the exchange, as per FixedFloat’s April 2 report.
In the third-largest attack, hackers netted $2.67 million worth of digital assets from Grand Base, while the fourth-largest hack on Pike Finance resulted in a loss of $1.6 million.
Investor concerns have been fueled by the fact that the $1.6 million attack on Pike Finance was the second hack suffered within three days, following a $300,000 exploit on April 26. Both attacks were enabled by the same smart contract vulnerability, allowing the attacker to override the contract, according to Pike Finance’s May 1 report.
According to a May 1 report by crypto bounty platform Immunefi, the total value of crypto hacks and rug pulls in 2024 year-to-date (YTD) amounted to over $401 million, representing a 25.1% decrease compared to the same period last year when over $536 million worth of funds were hacked.
Immunefi’s figures show that in April, $53 million was lost to hacks and fraud across 21 incidents, marking a 46% decrease from April 2023, when attackers stole over $98 million worth of digital assets. Hacks accounted for over 94.3% of the lost funds during the month.
Overall, the cryptocurrency space has witnessed a significant decline in hacking incidents and compromised funds, providing some reassurance to investors.