Cybercriminals at the moment are profiting from the continued craze round cryptocurrencies to trick potential victims and steal their digital cash. Actually, a report by Chainalysis revealed that hackers have exploited vulnerabilities inside crypto platforms or used conventional scamming strategies like ‘rug pull’, mooching off over $7.7 billion (Rs 58,698 crore approx.) price of cryptocurrency from victims in 2021. Right here we record all the foremost cryptocurrency scams that occurred this yr.
Poly Community
In August 2021, hackers pulled off one of many greatest ever cryptocurrency heists stealing $613 million in digital cash from token-swapping platform Poly Community. Nevertheless, the hackers returned $260 million price of tokens in lower than 24 hours.
For the uninitiated, Poly Network is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that facilitates peer-to-peer transactions enabling customers to switch or swap cryptocurrencies throughout a number of blockchains. For instance, a buyer might use Poly Community to switch tokens resembling Bitcoin from the Ethereum blockchain to the Binance Sensible Chain, maybe seeking to entry a selected software.
The attackers stole funds in additional than 12 totally different cryptocurrencies, together with Ether and a sort of Bitcoin, in line with Chainalysis.
Apparently, to start with, the hacker refused at hand the stolen crypto property over. That was till Poly Community requested for them to launch it, coughed up $500,000 as a gesture for locating the system vulnerability, and even provided them a job. Poly Community later revealed that the so-called “Mr. White Hat” had given them the personal key.
PancakeBunny
On Could 19, the PancakeBunny hack befell, with the cybercriminals making off about $45 million in a flash mortgage exploit, and tanking the value of Bunny tokens by 96 per cent from $220 to round $10 inside 24 hours.
A flash mortgage is an unsecured mortgage the place no safety is required on the a part of the borrower, it’s collateral-free. We now have to know that it’s automated so the lenders get their lent quantity inside a selected timeline mechanically. Nevertheless, fraudsters reap the benefits of such loans, by growing the value of the cash after which withdrawing all their investments inflicting the crypto market to tumble.
The hacker borrowed greater than $700 million in Binance Coin (BNB) from seven PancakeBunny lending swimming pools. They used this to govern the value of BNB— which triggered the value of Bunny cash to crater. After repaying the flash loans, the hacker was left with 114,631 BNB price about $45 million.
On July 16, the corporate’s new Polygon blockchain fork, PolyBunny, was additionally hit, with a flash mortgage assault minting $2.1 million price of Polybunny— tanking its tokens from $10 to beneath $2.
Bitmart
Hackers stole $196 million from crypto buying and selling platform Bitmart, the corporate referred to as the assault “a large-scale safety breach”. A mixture of greater than 20 tokens have been stolen, together with cryptocurrencies like BSC-USD, Binance Coin (BNB), BNBBPay (BPay), and Safemoon, whereas massive quantities of Moonshot, Floki, and BabyDoge have been additionally compromised.
Vulcan Solid
Play-to-earn non fungible token (NFT) platform Vulcan Solid mentioned it refunded over $140 million (Rs 1,062 crore approx.) price of cryptocurrency to all traders, a day after its platform was compromised. The cybercriminals stole property in Ether, Polygon in addition to the native cryptocurrency of Vulcan Solid termed ‘PYR’.
Vulcan Solid gives over six blockchain video games, and in addition has an lively NFT market, and its personal decentralized change, the place customers can commerce its token ‘PYR’. Jaime Thomson, the CEO of Vulcan Solid acknowledged the breach on Twitter and referred to as December 13 the “darkest day in Vulcan Solid historical past”.
Cream Finance
2021 was a nasty yr for Cream Finance, not solely did hackers make off with $130 million on this October 2021 assault, however this was the third assault the corporate had suffered within the yr. In February, hackers stole $37 million, and in August, $29 million.
The most recent assault noticed hackers exploiting what was regarded as a vulnerability within the DeFi platform’s flash mortgage system. They have been in a position to steal all of Cream Finance’s tokens and property on the Ethereum blockchain, which amounted to $130 million.
BadgerDAO
Cybercriminals stole at the least $120.3 million (roughly Rs 900 crore) in cryptocurrency by hacking into decentralised finance (DeFi) protocol Badger DAO. The assault was recognized on November 1.
Badger DAO, sometimes called BADGER is an open-source, decentralised automated organisation that’s targeted on creating infrastructure and merchandise with the intention to simplify the general use of Bitcoin, throughout Ethereum together with many different blockchains.
The hack, first found by blockchain safety agency PeckShield, tracked down the lacking funds. In line with the safety agency, the corporate misplaced at the least 2,100 Bitcoin and 151 Ethereum.
MonoX
At the least $31 million (Rs 226 crores approx) in cryptocurrency have been stolen by hacking into multi-chain decentralised change MonoX. The assault was first recognized on December 1.
MonoX Finance is a decentralied finance (DeFi) platform that’s targeted on creating infrastructure and merchandise with the intention to simplify the general use of Bitcoin, Ethereum together with many different blockchains.
Among the many funds misplaced are $18.2 million in Ethereum and $10.5 million in Matic. There are additionally smaller portions of a number of different tokens, together with cryptocurrencies resembling— Bitcoin, Chainlink, Unit Protocol, Aavegotchi, and Immutable X. It needs to be famous that Bitcoin is at present buying and selling at $47,564 (roughly Rs 35 lakh) per coin, Ethereum’s current worth is $3,974 (roughly Rs 2.90 lakh) per token.
Squid Recreation token
Tens of millions of {dollars} vanished in a matter of minutes after traders piled into a brand new cryptocurrency impressed by “Squid Recreation,” the favored Netflix survival collection, solely to look at its worth plunge to almost zero in a number of brief hours.
In style crypto change Binance, initiated a probe into the Squid token and froze pockets addresses of the token builders, and referred to as it a possible “rug pull” case. A rug pull is a malicious maneuver within the cryptocurrency business the place crypto builders abandon a challenge and run away with traders’ funds. Within the case of Squid crypto, it’s estimated that the creators have vanished with $3.3 million (roughly Rs 22 crore).
Stolen Bored Ape NFTs
Calvin Becerra, the proprietor of three Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs was tricked by fraudsters underneath the guise of offering technical help.
For many who don’t know, BAYC NFTs are a well-liked assortment of 10,000 distinctive bored apes created by Yuga Labs. This assortment has seen over half a billion {dollars} in gross sales up to now, as per dappradar.com metrics. It’s price noting that the minimal value of a BAYC NFT begins at 52 Ethereum or roughly $210,000. Becerra claims the three Bored Ape NFTs he owned have been over $1 million.
