October Crypto and DeFi Exploits Are All Trick and No Treat

Tallying up the total value in crypto that has been lost in DeFi exploits reveals that October has been the worst month on record, and it’s not even halfway through yet.

Industry analytics firm Chainalysis has reported that October has just become the biggest month in history for crypto hacking activities.

On Oct. 13, the company tweeted that so far this month, $718 million has been stolen from 11 different DeFi protocols via hacks or exploits.

The figure just eclipses the previous highest month for hacks which was March when the Ronin bridge was hacked for over $600 million.

“At this rate, 2022 will likely surpass 2021 as the biggest year for hacking on record. So far, hackers have grossed over $3 billion dollars across 125 hacks,” it stated.

DeFi hacking season

Chainalysis compared the nature of the exploits to those in 2019, stating that, back then, most hacks targeted centralized exchanges, whereas now they’re going after DeFi protocols and cross-chain bridges.

Three bridges have been breached this month already, and nearly $600 million has been stolen. These account for 82% of losses this month and 64% of losses thus far in 2022.

This week alone has seen exploits on Mango Markets, TempleDAO, and QANplatform. Losses from each platform were over $100 million from Solana-based DeFi derivatives platform Mango, $2.34 million from yield farming protocol TempleDAO, and $1 million from quantum-resistant layer-1 blockchain QANplatform. Earlier this month, the Binance BNB Chain was exploited for over $100 million, adding to the record-breaking October tally.

DeFi Yield’s Rekt Database reports that the total amount of money lost to crypto hacks, exploits, and rug pulls has jumped 200% over the past month or so. That total now stands at a staggering $61 billion, according to the dashboard.

The figures are a little skewed, however, as it does list the Terra ecosystem collapse as the leading loss of funds in the crypto industry, with $40 billion lost.

TVL tanking

The total value locked across the DeFi ecosystem has declined by 71.5% since its all-time high of $214 billion in December 2021. Today’s figure stands at $61 billion, according to DeFiLlama.

The drop is not related to hacking or exploits but is a result of the fall in crypto asset prices. Crypto markets have declined by a very similar percentage, 69%, over the same period of time, dropping from just over $3 trillion in November to $957 billion today.