Cryptocurrency losses in May reached $42.6 million, with Gala Games and Sonne Finance suffering the most losses, losing $21.6 million and $20 million, respectively.

The cryptocurrency industry lost $42.6 million in May to exploits, flash loans and exit scams, according to blockchain security firm CertiK.

Despite these setbacks, approximately $96.2 million in funds were recovered, providing some relief to the financial losses.

Flash loan attacks dominate blockchain losses

Flash loan attacks caused the most serious losses in the cryptocurrency field, with a total loss of approximately $20.7 million. Among them, Sonne Finance suffered the most serious losses, reaching $20 million, followed by TLN Protocol, which lost $746,000. In addition, GPU and Saturn Token also suffered losses of $32,394 and $8,343 respectively.

The vulnerability attack also had a significant impact on the cryptocurrency industry, causing losses of approximately $19.7 million. Among them, Gala Games suffered the most serious losses, reaching $21.6 million, followed by AlexLab's $4.3 million, Pump Fun's $1.9 million, GNUS.ai's $1.28 million, and Orion's $947,000.

Despite the low frequency, the runaway scams resulted in losses of approximately $1.8 million, including $1.11 million to Trees On Sol, $0.49 million to Pii Park, $123,019 to Novamind, and $91,520 to Arbalest.

An interesting phenomenon is that flash loan attacks cause significant property losses in every odd month of the year. Losses in January, March and May were $15.3 million, $21.9 million and $20.7 million respectively. By comparison, losses in February and April were less than $150,000 each.

Meanwhile, February saw the largest losses from runaway scams, totaling $58.3 million, while losses recorded in other months were less than 10% of this total.

Cryptocurrency Hacks and Rug Pulls Continue

From 2024 to date, security services provider Immunefi reported that more than $473 million in cryptocurrency was lost in 108 incidents due to hacking and Rug Pulls (the project party ran away with the money).

Decentralized finance (DeFi) markets continue to be the main target of hacker attacks, while centralized financial institutions (centralized exchanges, CEX) did not suffer any attacks in 2024. In contrast, losses due to hacker attacks and vulnerability exploits exceeded $2 billion last year, which is about half of the total losses in the previous year.

In May 2024, Ethereum and BNB Chain were the two most attacked blockchains, together accounting for 62% of the total losses of all attacked blockchains.

Cryptocurrency hacks and exploits remain an ongoing problem. Just recently, Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DMM Bitcoin reported losing 48 billion yen (about $305 million) in Bitcoin (BTC) due to a hacker attack. In a blog post, DMM Bitcoin stated that 4,502.9 BTC were “stolen” from the exchange.

Conclusion:

With the rapid development of the cryptocurrency market, security issues have become increasingly prominent. A series of hacker attacks and vulnerability exploitation incidents in May 2024 once again reminded us that protecting asset security is the top priority for the development of the industry. Despite the challenges, through the unremitting efforts of the security team and the joint collaboration of the community, some losses have been recovered, demonstrating the industry's ability to cope with crises.

In the future, we look forward to further reducing risks, protecting user assets, and promoting the healthy and stable development of the cryptocurrency industry through technological innovation and the improvement of security awareness. At the same time, we also call on investors to be vigilant, strengthen self-protection, and jointly create a safer and more transparent investment environment. #CertiK #黑客攻击 #加密货币