Crypto hacks are not going away.

The numbers are rising exponentially, given the total for the last ten years is approximately $27.47B in losses, 2021 was a big year. And this year is starting out as a doozie. On March 29, the Ronin Network announced the theft of 173,000 ether tokens and 25.5M USD Coin tokens totaling losses of $600M at the time of the announcement. 

The August 2021 heist of the Poly Network to the tune of $610m still holds the dubious top spot. The list of heists worldwide is growing, increasing in frequency, and now averaging $150M, and increasing. What’s clear is that absolute security is simply unattainable.

While some people do get their funds back, many do not. In the 2021 Poly Networks breach totaling $600M, most of the funds were returned, except for a measly $33M. Hackers stated they just wanted to expose security flaws in the network. $200M of the funds were trapped behind a password that “Mr. White Hat” refused to share. Poly Network pleaded with the hacker and promised to grant the unidentified person a $500,000 bounty for helping it identify a flaw in its systems and even offered them a job as “chief security advisor.”

Before the Ronin heist, the Poly heist was the biggest ever, surpassing the $534M stolen from Japanese digital currency exchange Coincheck in 2018 and the estimated $450M worth of bitcoin that went missing from Tokyo-based Mt. Gox in 2014.

You would think the perpetrators are a bunch of tech nerds, but It's not known who is behind many hacks. It’s not necessarily cyber-criminals. State-sponsored hackers were identified as responsible for some crypto heists. According to cryptocurrency researchers at Chainalysis, North Korean hackers stole almost $400m worth of digital assets in at least seven attacks on cryptocurrency platforms last in 2021.

So, better check your wallet.