According to blockchain security firm Cyvers, a new blockchain security solution could potentially prevent more than 99% of cryptocurrency hacks and scams, which cost the industry over $2.3 billion in 2024. Hacks continue to hinder mainstream cryptocurrency adoption, with stolen digital assets surpassing the total from 2023 by 40%.
Michael Pearl, the Vice President of GTM Strategy at blockchain security company Cyvers, stated that an emerging blockchain security solution could preemptively simulate and validate blockchain transactions in an offchain environment, potentially preventing almost all cryptocurrency scams. Pearl explained that with comprehensive monitoring and preemptive interception, this solution can prevent 99.9% of hacks, including unknown ones like zero-day hacks.
Pearl mentioned that an increasing number of wallet providers and centralized exchanges (CEXs) are showing interest in Cyvers’ transaction validation solution. This solution can be applied to various transactions, including small retail-size transactions and more complex blockchain transfers like flash loans.
Crypto phishing scams, which resulted in $1 billion in stolen funds across 296 incidents in 2024, remain highly damaging. At least three phishing incidents led to losses exceeding $100 million.
According to Pearl, Cyvers’ solution could have detected the malicious smart contract that caused the $230 million WazirX hack eight days before the funds were lost. Pearl emphasized that the solution can protect CEXs, which are vulnerable due to the presence of one or a few hot wallets holding billions of dollars. Exchanges often rely on multi-signature or multi-party computation for fund protection, but this can still leave them susceptible to attacks.
Cyvers’ 2024 report revealed that access control vulnerabilities, known as access control vulnerabilities, accounted for $1.9 billion in stolen value, or over 81% of the total amount lost to crypto hacks. These vulnerabilities were responsible for 67 cybersecurity incidents in 2024.
Smart contract exploits ranked as the second-largest attack vector, resulting in $456 million in losses across 98 incidents, accounting for 19% of the total value stolen.