New York (CNN Business)A staggering $1.9 billion in value in the first seven months of this year due to hacking of various services of cryptocurrencies were stolen. A report released Tuesday by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis shows a 60% increase from the same period last year.
Despite the sharp decline in the value of many cryptocurrencies in the first half of this year, there has been a surge. The report attributes much of the spike to decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol hacks. The term refers to services that seek to replace traditional financial institutions with software that allows users to transact directly with each other via the blockchain, the digital ledger that underpins cryptocurrencies.
An estimated $1 billion has been stolen from his DeFi protocol by North Korea-linked hackers so far this year, according to a Chainalysis report. These thefts are believed to be part of a broader strategy to bring in income to the North Korean regime, which is largely cut off from the world.
DeFi transactions, primarily based on Ethereum blockchain technology, have grown rapidly in popularity over the past two years. According to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, these protocols are “vulnerable to hacking,” thanks to open source code, large pools of assets, and rapid growth that may have led to the demise of security best practices. very vulnerable”.
"The technology in general is relatively immature. The field has only really emerged in the last few years," said Tom Robinson, chief of Elliptic and his scientist. he told his CNN Business. "Mistakes are made and lessons are learned from them, but software always has bugs. I think the problem here is that software is the only thing that protects these assets." 22}
Chainalysis warns that the rise in cryptocurrency theft shows no signs of slowing down despite the crypto market drop. According to the report, “As long as crypto assets held in DeFi protocol pools and other services are valuable and vulnerable, bad actors will try to steal them. It points to two major recent DeFi hacks, including $190 million reportedly stolen fromcryptocurrency bridge provider Nomad. , occurred after the report's data cut-off point.