Over $266M Lost To Crypto Hacks In July 2024

Hacks in the crypto industry caused a loss of more than $266 million worth of digital assets in July according to blockchain security firm PeckShield. 

As per PeckShield data, the largest hack during the month was on the WazirX cryptocurrency exchange. The breach, attributed to the North Korean threat actor group Lazarus, contributed to a loss of $230 million. 

The funds stolen from the WazirX exchange hack have yet to be recovered. The exchange also halted withdrawals and is currently working on a plan to resume operations. 

16 Hacks Reported In The Crypto Space In July 

The PeckShield data pointed out that a total of 16 hacks were reported in the crypto space in July. After the WazirX exchange breach, Compound Finance suffered an alleged governance attack, with $24M being lost. 

In late July, a team dubbed Golden Boys on the Compound governance forum secured 682,191 votes in favor of a proposal for a yield-earning mechanism where COMP holders can deposit the token to earn a wrapped version known as goldCOMP. 

Over $25M was moved from the Compound Treasury after the vote passed. However, the community quickly raised concerns about a whale influencing the vote and conducting a governance attack. 

LI.FI, another decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol also suffered a $9.73M hack in July. Bittensor lost $8M to hackers, while RhoMarkets was hacked for $7.6M but the funds were returned. 

The other top hacks of the month included DoughFina, where $1.86M was lost, a $1.4M hack on Pinterest, and $1.3M lost during the MonoSwap hack. DeltaPrime also suffered a $1M exploit, but the attacker returned $900,000. 

Terra Blockchain Hack 

The last hack in July was on the Terra blockchain, which was exploited on July 31. According to Peckshield, this hack led to a loss of $4 million. 

The Terra blockchain team announced that it would work alongside Terra (Phoenix-1) validators to implement a patch to the bug that enabled the exploit. The chain was halted at block height 11430400 for the patch to be implemented. 

The chain resumed operations after a few hours, with validators being urged to upgrade their nodes to patch the flow and prevent the exploit from reoccurring. 

The total amount of losses incurred from hacking exploits in July 2024 was notably higher than the $176M lost in June. the recent losses add to the $1.56 billion lost to hacking exploits during the first half of 2024.