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Crypto Crime on the Rise: Over $473 Million Lost to Hacks and Rug Pulls in 2024

According to a report by Immunefi, cryptocurrency losses due to hacks and rug pulls amounted to over $473 million across 108 incidents in 2024. In May alone, $52 million was stolen, with Gala Games and SonneFinance being the hardest hit, losing $21 million and $20 million respectively. This total represents a 12% decrease compared to May 2023.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) continues to be the primary target for hackers, while centralized finance companies remained untouched by attacks throughout 2024.

In the previous year, losses due to hacks and exploits totaled over $2 billion, which was roughly half of the total from the year before. The North Korean hacking group Lazarus has been responsible for $3 billion worth of crypto losses over the past six years.

Ethereum saw the highest number of hacks, accounting for 43% of the total losses across 9 incidents, while BNB Chain came in second with 19% of the total.

May 2024, Cryptoniteuae

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Vaibhavv Ali
Vaibhavv Ali

Vaibhavv Ali is the founder and editor of Cryptonite (cryptonite.ae), an independent digital-asset news and analysis publication with a UAE focus. He covers virtual-asset regulation — VARA, ADGM and the UAE Central Bank — alongside real-world-asset tokenization, stablecoins and agentic AI in finance. Every Cryptonite article is human-edited and its sources are linked. He is also a celebrated speaker and host.

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