In April, the total value of cryptocurrency compromised by hacking experienced a significant drop of 67%, falling to $60.2 million. This decline marks the first major decrease in crypto attacks in 2024 and is a stark contrast to the $187.6 million hacked in March and the $360.8 million worth of hacked digital assets in February, according to a recent report by on-chain security firm Peckshield.
The $60.2 million stolen in April resulted from 40 individual hacking incidents. Hacks and exploits have been major concerns for trust in cryptocurrencies and their mainstream adoption.
The largest incident in April was the $44.7 million hack on Hedgey Finance, a token infrastructure platform. The hackers exploited a vulnerability in Hedgey’s token claim contract on the Arbitrum Network on April 19.
The second-largest hacking incident involved $3 million worth of crypto stolen from the Fixed Float crypto exchange. This was due to a vulnerability with a third-party service provider used by the exchange, according to FixedFloat’s announcement on April 2.
The third-largest attack targeted Grand Base, resulting in hackers netting $2.67 million worth of digital assets. The fourth-largest hack, on Pike Finance, led to a loss of $1.6 million worth of funds.
Investor concerns were further fueled by the fact that the $1.6 million attack on Pike Finance was the second hack suffered by the platform within three days, following a $300,000 exploit on April 26. Both attacks were a result of the same smart contract vulnerability, which allowed the attacker to override the contract.
According to a report by crypto bounty platform Immunefi, the crypto space witnessed over $401 million worth of hacks and rug pulls in 2024 year-to-date (YTD), representing a 25.1% decrease compared to the same period last year when over $536 million worth of funds were hacked.
In April, a total of $53 million was lost to hacks and fraud across 21 incidents, marking a 46% decrease from April 2023, when attackers stole over $98 million worth of digital assets. Hacks remained the primary cause of losses, accounting for over 94.3% of the funds lost during the month.