According to blockchain security firm Beosin, Web3 projects will lose more than $2 billion by 2023 due to hacks, back pulls and phishing.
In a new annual reportThe crypto security company notes that 191 major attacks this year resulted in approximately $1.397 billion in losses, 267 carpet attacks caused $388 million in losses, and phishing scams stole $238 million.
Rug pulls generally refer to events where developers promote a new cryptocurrency project to investors and sell affiliated tokens, then withdraw the funds raised during the token sale and disappear.
Beosin says that 68% of the 191 major hacks targeted decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. Those DeFi hacks resulted in losses worth $408 million, 29.2% of the total stolen attacks this year. The company also notes that 51.8% of total stolen funds were left at hacker addresses.
Beosin explains,
“Hackers employed complex money laundering methods, leveraged inter-chain transfers and spread funds across multiple addresses, posing challenges to investigations by both project teams and regulators.”
Overall losses from hacks, carpet pulling and phishing are down almost 54% this year compared to 2022, although Beosin notes that offline crypto crime saw a huge increase in 2023.
“Global crypto crime losses reached $65.68 billion in 2023, an increase of approximately 377% from $13.76 billion in 2022. The top three types of crimes in terms of losses were illegal gambling, money laundering and fraud.”
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