In May, the crypto community endured devastating losses to hackers, resulting in the highest loss tally recorded in 2024 to date.. According to a report from blockchain security firm Peckshield, hackers made away with $385 million in May, highlighting the sophistication of these bad actors and the consistent need for effective security measures in the digital asset industry.

Crypto Losses Up By 666% In May – Peckshield

Based on Peckshield’s report, the crypto space experienced approximately 30 hack cases in May 2024. 

Of these incidents, the attack on Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin on May 31st resulted in the loss of over 4,500 Bitcoin, valued at $305 million. This heist represented the largest hack of the month and 2024 so far. It was also the second-largest crypto hack in Japan following the $533 million heist of Coincheck in 2018.

#PeckShieldAlert May 2024 witnessed ~30 hacks in the crypto space, resulting in ~$574.6 million in losses, w/ ~$385 million in hackers’ profits. This marks an increase of about 666% from April 2024.#Top5 Hacks:
–#DMMBitcoin: $305 million
–#GALAGames: $212 million (hackers’… pic.twitter.com/2n5YUaw3OQ

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) June 1, 2024

Another major hack involved the crypto gaming project Gala Games which suffered a significant network breach on May 20, where bad actors were able to mint 5 billion GALA tokens worth about $212 million. However, via swift security measures, Gala’s development team was able to mitigate the losses to around $22.4 million. 

Other major hacks in May involved DeFi protocol Sonne Finance and a Coinbase account drainer which resulted in the loss of $20 million and $18 million worth of assets, respectively. In total, $575 million was stolen by hackers, albeit, the bad actors made a profit of only $385 million following the Gala Games’ impressive recovery.

In comparison to April with total losses of $60 million, the figures reported in May represent a staggering 666% rise in assets stolen by attackers. More alarmingly, these figures indicate a 2,300% increase on the $14.6 million losses in May 2023.

Undoubtedly, this sharp increase in hacking incidents and asset loss signals the constant need for more robust security measures for the digital asset space especially as the novel industry strives for mainstream adoption in the global financial scene.

Crypto Market Overview

In other news, the cryptocurrency market remains relatively stable, with major assets experiencing minimal fluctuations over the past 24 hours. According to CoinMarketCap, the total crypto market cap saw a modest increase of 0.65% on Sunday, reaching $2.54 trillion.

Bitcoin, the market leader, is currently valued at $67,812, reflecting a slight gain of 0.11% in the last day. Similarly, other major tokens such as Ethereum and BNB recorded small increases, with daily gains of 0.31% and 0.35%, respectively.

Featured image from The Economic Times, chart from Tradingview