The biggest crypto hacks of all time
The biggest cryptocurrency theft or crypto hack of all time, calculated using the value of the crypto assets at the time they were stolen, was March 2022’s raid on Ronin Network, an exchange that allows players of the Axie Infinity videogame to exchange their in-game tokens for another cryptocurrency.On 30th March, the network revealed that an attacker had stolen the private keys required to authenticate transactions and had transferred 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5m USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, to their own wallets. Using the conversion rate at the time, this values the heist at $614m. The theft was discovered when a customer tried to make a legitimate withdrawal. Now you know Ronin Network was the largest crypto hack please be careful not to be a victim. But if it was too late for you to notice and got scammed give www.smartprivatekeyhack.com a chance to put a smile back on your face with its most competent crypto hacker.
most sophisticated security measures taken against crypto hacks
Sky Mavis, the company behind Axie Infinity, said it is working with “law enforcement officials, forensic cryptographers, and our investors to make sure there is no loss of user funds.”We know trust needs to be earned and are using every resource at our disposal to deploy the most sophisticated security measures and processes to prevent future attacks,” the company said.
Poly Network crypto hack 2021 – $611m
The biggest crypto hack or theft of all time, calculated using the value of the crypto assets at the time they were stolen, is last year’s $611m theft from Poly Network, a smart contract platform that allows users to exchange tokens between disparate blockchains, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
On August 10th 2021, a hacker transferred $611m-worth of Poly Network tokens to three wallets under their control. According to analysis by security researcher Mudit Gupta, the attacker had found a way to ‘unlock’ (ie buy) tokens on the Poly Network protocol without ‘locking’ (ie selling) the corresponding tokens on other blockchains.Fortunately for Poly Network, the attacker began returning the tokens the next day. While some speculated that they may have struggled to sell the tokens, someone claiming to be the attacker said they had only stolen them “for fun”.
Coincheck crypto theft 2018 – $547m
In January 2018, Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck revealed that $547m in lesser-known cryptocurrency NEM had been stolen. The company admitted that it had stored the assets in a ‘hot wallet’, meaning a cryptocurrency store that is connected to the internet and therefore vulnerable to cybersecurity breaches.
Shortly after the incident, 16 of Japan’s crypto exchanges merged to form a self-regulatory body. The country’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Association, ordered all exchanges to report on their cybersecurity defenses.
Leading Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid has been hit by hackers, with almost $100m (£73m) estimated to have been stolen.
The company announced that some of its digital currency wallets have been “compromised.”
It is the second major theft of cryptocurrencies to take place in recent days.
Last week, digital token platform Poly Network was at the centre of a $600m heist.
“We are sorry to announce that #LiquidGlobal warm wallets were compromised, we are moving assets into the cold wallet,” the company said on Twitter.
So-called ‘warm’ or ‘hot’ digital wallets are usually based online and designed to allow users to access their cryptocurrencies more easily, while ‘cold’ wallets are offline and harder to access and therefore usually more secure.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said its analysis showed that around $97m in cryptocurrencies had been taken, with Bitcoin and Ethereum tokens amongst the haul.
Liquid has said that it was tracing the movement of the stolen cryptocurrencies and working with other exchanges to freeze and recover the assets.
KuCoin, 2020 –crypto hack $285m
In September 2020, Singapore-headquartered crypto exchange KuCoin revealed that $275m worth of cryptocurrency had been stolen, including $127m in ERC20 tokens, which are used in Ethereum smart contracts. CEO Johnny Lyu revealed that hackers had obtained the private keys to the exchange’s ‘hot wallets.The majority of the stolen tokens were recovered, and the remaining 16% in stolen funds was covered by KuCoin’s insurance, the company said in February 2021, so all customers were reimbursed.