Crypto lost approximately $42.6 million in May. Gala Games and Sonne Finance suffered the most, losing around $21.6 million and $20 million, respectively.
CertiK, a blockchain security organization, reported that crypto lost around $42.6 million in May 2024 to flash loans, exploits, and scams. Despite this loss, it recovered around $96.2 million.
Flash Loan Attacks Caused the Major Setback
Flash loan attacks led to major losses in cryptocurrency, totaling around $20.7 million. Sonne Fiance lost $20 million, suffering the most, followed by TLN Protocol, losing almost $746,000. Moreover, Saturn and GPU lost around $8,343 and $32,394, respectively.
Also, scams damaged the cryptocurrency market, causing a loss of almost $19.7 million. Gala Games faced a major setback, losing around $21.6M, then AlexLab $4.3M, Pump Fun $1.9M, GNUS.ai $1.28M, and Orion $947,000.
Even though exit scams are less common, they still contributed around $1.8 million to losses. Among these, Pii Park lost $490,000, Trees On Sol lost $1.11 million, Arbalest lost $91,520, and Novamind lost $123,019.
Interestingly, these attacks by flash loan have led to notable losses in odd-numbered months of the year. January saw the loss of $15.3M, March $21.9M, and May $20.7M. However, these losses were less than $150,000 in February and April.
Meanwhile, while February’s loss was less than 10% compared to other months, exploits caused a major loss of around $58.3 million.
Crypto Hacks and Rug Pulls Persist
Immunefi, a security service provider, reported that from 2024 to the present, around 108 incidents were reported as rug pulls and hacks, causing a loss of more than $473 million worth of crypto.
The hackers’ primary target was the DeFi market, and no attacks were reported against centralized finance firms in 2024. However, more than $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency was compromised due to exploits and scams, less than half of last year’s loss.
In May 2024, BNB Chain and Ethereum were the most attacked chains. Collectively, their losses were around 62% of the total losses.
These crypto scams and hacks are still in action. A Japanese crypto exchange. DMM Bitcoin reported a loss of 48B Yen ($305M) of Bitcoin. The exchange stated that 4,502.9 BTC “leaked” out in a blog post.
