The Nine Largest Crypto Hacks in 2022

Already nearly $2 billion, the value of cryptoassets lost to software exploits this year is likely to exceed 2021

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by axel Rangel

share

key takeaways

  • Single lines of ill-conceived code gave hackers access to cryptoassets worth hundreds of millions of dollars
  • Most of the hacked companies are continuing operations after undergoing audits or upgrading their security

Hackers exploited a software bug in the Web3 music platform Audius to make off with $1.1 million on Saturday, but the funds are a drop in the nearly-$2 billion dollar bucket of funds lost to hacks through the first half of 2022, according to Blockchain security firm Beosin.

The fiat value of hacked assets are on pace to top the $3.2 billion lost in 2021, according to crypto security firm Chainalysis, even amid a drastic slide in cryptocurrency valuations. Blockworks compiled some of the year’s largest crypto hacks to see what went wrong and how protocols fared after being hacked.



  • Crypto.com, January 17, $35 million
    • In late January, a hacker managed to disable two-factor authentication on the crypto exchange Crypto.com and extract bitcoin and ether from customer accounts. CEO Kris Marszalek initially denied customer funds were lost before acknowledging the hack days later. The company said it is transitioning to “multi-factor authentication” in response to the exploit.
  • Qubit QBridge Hack, January 27, $80 million
  • Wormhole, February 2, $325 million
    • A hacker exploited smart contracts on the Solana-to-Ethereum bridge to mint and cash out on wrapped ether without depositing collateral. Jump Crypto, the venture capital firm behind Wormhole, replenished the stolen funds to keep Solana-based platforms affected by the hack solvent. Wormhole renamed its bridge Portal and currently holds over $480 million, according to crypto data firm DeFi Llama. 
  • IRA Financial Trust, February 8, $37 million
    • The crypto-focused retirement and pension platform was pilfered when hackers accessed a “master key” that bypassed all security measures to customer accounts. IRA Financial Trust has since sued Gemini, the crypto exchange where customer funds were stored, for alleged negligence leading to the hack.
  • Cashio, March 22, $52 million
    • A string of fake accounts used an “infinite mint glitch” to put up worthless collateral for Cashio’s CASH stablecoin. The coin’s peg cratered to zero and has not recovered, according to data from CoinGecko.
  • Axie Infinity Ronin Bridge, March 28, $625 million
  • Beanstalk, April 17, $182 million
    • A hacker used a “flash loan,” where funds are borrowed and repaid in the same transaction, to accumulate enough assets to control the stablecoin’s governance protocol. The hacker passed a proposal donating funds to Ukraine before making off with the collateral. Developers paused the protocol while undergoing audits and raising funds, but plan to reopen deposits in early August.
  • Fei Protocol, April 30, $80 million
    • A “reentrancy” bug in the lending protocol’s code allowed a hacker to take out a loan while also withdrawing the collateral put up on the loan. Fei users passed a proposal to make investors whole through “the DAO repaying the bad debt on behalf of the hacker.” The Fei stablecoin remains at its dollar peg, per CoinGecko.
  • Harmony Bridge, June 23, $100 million

Don’t miss the next big story – join our free daily newsletter.

Follow Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial with the latest news from the courtroom

Tags

Upcoming Events

MON - WED, MARCH 18 - 20, 2024

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will take place March 18-20, 2024 at The Hilton London Metropole. Why London? Momentum.  London has become one of the world’s hottest crypto hubs.  Innovation is thriving, new institutional investors are flocking in, and regulators like […]

recent research

l1 cover.png

Research

This analysis focuses on financial metrics for general-purpose L1 blockchains. In many ways, L1s should be viewed as an entirely new asset class more comparable to digital economies than traditional businesses. L1s are the core infrastructure enabling the creation of new-age businesses like onchain protocols.

article-image

Ripple previously announced its intent to acquire Fortress on Sept. 8

article-image

Four patent applications were published since Sept. 21, suggesting that PayPal is taking a close look at distributed ledger tech

article-image

If the market wasn’t quite so boring, perhaps BitBoy’s flameout would have been a little less fiery

article-image

Developers have a new testnet running, but devnet testing the Dencun upgrade is running behind schedule

article-image

A handful of Democrats are joining the anti-Gensler and pro-crypto movement

article-image

The Bank of International Settlements conducted the project in partnership with central banks from France, Singapore and Switzerland