Decentralized finance security platform, or DeFi, and bug bounty service ImmuneFi released an official report on Thursday calculating the total volume of losses in cryptocurrency markets in 2021. According to its report, the company found that losses resulting from hacks, scams, and other malicious activities exceeded $ 10.2 billion over the past year.
Responsible for the protection of assets valued at over $ 100 billion for a number of well-established DeFi protocols, including Synthetix, Chainlink, SushiSwap, and PancakeSwap, among others, ImmuneFi has regularly facilitated millionaire payments to white hat hackers and other entities of good will to prevent protocol attacks.
According to the report, throughout 2021 there were 120 cases of exploits or fraudulent thefts of cryptocurrencies, the most valued hack being the Poly Network with USD 613 million, followed by Venus and BitMart with 200 and 150 million dollars, respectively.
Other notable cases on the list were Alpha Finance and Cream Finance, which were hacked for $ 37.5 million, the $ 11 million yearn.finance, Furucombo’s $ 14 million evil contract exploit, as well as the infamous reverse rug pull from Alchemix, in which users of the platform claimed a gratifying fortune of USD 6.5 million due after a withdrawal problem arose with one of the synthetic assets of the platform’s smart contracts, alETH.
In 2021 there was a sharp increase in both the frequency and volume of security visits compared to the previous year, in which 123 incidents were recorded for a total of USD 4.38 billion, representing a percentage increase of 137 %.
We’ve just released our report for 2021 on crypto losses stemming from hacks and scams.
In total, the DeFi ecosystem saw a loss of $ 10,210,188,549
Read more facts and figures here: https: //t.co/gCWiOqjhhZ pic.twitter.com/zEX28yg0vD
– Immunefi (@immunefi) January 7, 2022
We just released our 2021 report on crypto losses from hacks and scams.
In total, the DeFi ecosystem suffered a loss of $ 10,210,188,549.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Immunefi CEO and founder Mitchell Amador spoke of his optimism for the future of on-chain security, despite what he described as a “year of dramatic losses” for the industry.
“Despite the emergence of entirely new vulnerabilities in the on-chain economy, the community is adapting rapidly. At Immunefi alone, we have saved twice the amount lost from exploits this year, and security best practices are circulating around the globe. the whole community”.
Amador cited ImmuneFi’s role in facilitating Polygon’s recent USD 3.47 million payment to two white hat hackers for their decisive role in preventing what was described as a “critical” vulnerability in the genesis contract of proof-of-stake of the network, which put at risk almost the entire supply of USD 10 billion of MATIC tokens.
In September of last year, ImmuneFi arranged what was once reported as the largest reward payment in DeFi history to renowned white hat programmer Alexander Schlindwein for avoiding a potential $ 10 million bug crisis in the creator protocol. Automated Market Market, or AMM, Belt Finance.
Schlindwein received compensation of USD 1.05 million in total, of which one million was awarded by Belt Finance with ImmuneFi acting as the intermediary, and the remaining USD 50,000 offered by the Priority One program of the Binance Smart Chain.
In October, ImmuneFi announced a $ 5.5 million capital raise from a number of institutional investors, including Blueprint Forest, Electric Capital, with the intention of expanding their security services across the DeFi sector in a concerted effort to reduce prevalence and the financial impact of benevolent security exploits in space.