The year 2022 can be tagged as one of the most notorious for the digital currency ecosystem, with Forbes confirming that more than $3 billion were lost to heists and exploitation. According to the report, the industry experienced a total of 125 hacks this year alone, and the top five protocols saw a total of $1.48 billion moved by hackers.
The Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem accounted for the most attacked offshoot in the industry. DeFi hacks accounted for as many as 49% of the overall total. The impacts of the hacks are untold, and they have contributed to shrinking investments in the DeFi world, according to on-chain data.
Per DeFiLlama, the Total Value Locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols shrank from more than $166 billion at the start of the year, and it is currently pegged at $38.91 billion at the time of writing. Expert developers in the industry have continued to express dissatisfaction about how much the protocols — particularly bridges — attract hackers.
In its account, Forbes recounted that the five largest hacks of the year include the $625 million Ronin Network hack, the $325 WormHole Network exploit, the $190 million Nomad Bridge, the $182 million Beanstalk Farms breach and the $160 million Wintermute hack.
Hacks beyond DeFi
While DeFi saw the most hacks, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and crypto exchanges also recorded a number of exploits all year long. One of the first victims of an exchange hack was Crypto.com, which lost as much as $35 million in mid-January. The hack did not disrupt the exchange's activities but signaled that no trading platform was invincible against hackers.
High-profile NFT projects including the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) saw a number of attacks on their Discord platforms as hackers explored different strategies to rip off investors.