The world of crypto has always been fraught with risk due to a lack of regulation and adherence to decentralization. Hacks and scams run rampant in the ecosystem, creating an entire industry of on-chain sleuths dedicated to tracking down lost funds and coders who take advantage of flaws in protocols.
In 2022, exploits focused on decentralized finance, with some 97% of the $1.3 billion stolen in the first three months of the year coming from DeFi platforms. By the end of the year, cybercriminals had hacked over $3 billion from crypto, with $718 million stolen from decentralized finance protocols in October alone—the worst month on record.
