$1 Billion Dollar’s Worth of Cryptocurrency Stolen in 2018

[Apes]

It is a huge amount. Hackers nowadays are focusing to steal the crypto funds, especially the crypto exchanges, and unfortunately, they reached a good level of success in many cases. Lastly, we remember the hacking of MyEtherWallet and Cryptopia, just for examples. There are other big amounts stolen by getting the private keys of the BTC and ETH wallets.

true, some exchanges with weak security systems are targeted, hackers now often direct their attacks to cryptocurrency exchanges, with the big amount of funds stored in it maybe if they succeed in breaking into the system they will get rich instantly.
because breaking into an exchange system is very difficult, direct attacks on cryptocurrency users still exist.

[Jating]

It is a huge amount. Hackers nowadays are focusing to steal the crypto funds, especially the crypto exchanges, and unfortunately, they reached a good level of success in many cases. Lastly, we remember the hacking of MyEtherWallet and Cryptopia, just for examples. There are other big amounts stolen by getting the private keys of the BTC and ETH wallets.

true, some exchanges with weak security systems are targeted, hackers now often direct their attacks to cryptocurrency exchanges, with the big amount of funds stored in it maybe if they succeed in breaking into the system they will get rich instantly.
because breaking into an exchange system is very difficult, direct attacks on cryptocurrency users still exist.

What do you mean that it's difficult, many exchanges has been breached already, including Binance (although the hackers have colluded with someone inside allegedly), so it's not that hard actually. The thing with cyber criminals is that they are really good at it. They really stalked crypto exchanges for many months before finally executing their plans.

So it's a combination of skills, hard work as well, and then one day when everyone thought that crypto exchanges are safe, they will attack, get everything that their hands can reach get out used mixing services to hide the trail or sometimes they won't moved it at all and again wait for the perfect time when everyone is not looking.

[Mahanton]

It is a huge amount. Hackers nowadays are focusing to steal the crypto funds, especially the crypto exchanges, and unfortunately, they reached a good level of success in many cases. Lastly, we remember the hacking of MyEtherWallet and Cryptopia, just for examples. There are other big amounts stolen by getting the private keys of the BTC and ETH wallets.

true, some exchanges with weak security systems are targeted, hackers now often direct their attacks to cryptocurrency exchanges, with the big amount of funds stored in it maybe if they succeed in breaking into the system they will get rich instantly.
because breaking into an exchange system is very difficult, direct attacks on cryptocurrency users still exist.

What do you mean that it's difficult, many exchanges has been breached already, including Binance (although the hackers have colluded with someone inside allegedly), so it's not that hard actually. The thing with cyber criminals is that they are really good at it. They really stalked crypto exchanges for many months before finally executing their plans.

So it's a combination of skills, hard work as well, and then one day when everyone thought that crypto exchanges are safe, they will attack, get everything that their hands can reach get out used mixing services to hide the trail or sometimes they won't moved it at all and again wait for the perfect time when everyone is not looking.

For scammers and hackers they would tend to let the issue or fire would cooldown before they do tend to move those funds.Even me as a hacker would definitely do the same. 
No exchange is safe on what most platforms do promise on.Yes, we can think off that there might be some inside job in these cases but no one can really still make a conclusion since these were only alleged or speculations but high chances this would be most likely the case.This crypto space would involved lots of hacking events and it would continue
because this market do involved millions and billions of dollars.

[Yaunfitda]

It is a huge amount. Hackers nowadays are focusing to steal the crypto funds, especially the crypto exchanges, and unfortunately, they reached a good level of success in many cases. Lastly, we remember the hacking of MyEtherWallet and Cryptopia, just for examples. There are other big amounts stolen by getting the private keys of the BTC and ETH wallets.

true, some exchanges with weak security systems are targeted, hackers now often direct their attacks to cryptocurrency exchanges, with the big amount of funds stored in it maybe if they succeed in breaking into the system they will get rich instantly.
because breaking into an exchange system is very difficult, direct attacks on cryptocurrency users still exist.

What do you mean that it's difficult, many exchanges has been breached already, including Binance (although the hackers have colluded with someone inside allegedly), so it's not that hard actually. The thing with cyber criminals is that they are really good at it. They really stalked crypto exchanges for many months before finally executing their plans.

So it's a combination of skills, hard work as well, and then one day when everyone thought that crypto exchanges are safe, they will attack, get everything that their hands can reach get out used mixing services to hide the trail or sometimes they won't moved it at all and again wait for the perfect time when everyone is not looking.

For scammers and hackers they would tend to let the issue or fire would cooldown before they do tend to move those funds.Even me as a hacker would definitely do the same. 
No exchange is safe on what most platforms do promise on.Yes, we can think off that there might be some inside job in these cases but no one can really still make a conclusion since these were only alleged or speculations but high chances this would be most likely the case.This crypto space would involved lots of hacking events and it would continue
because this market do involved millions and billions of dollars.

Yep, they will have to wait for a cool down, however, there are also group of people who's work is to track those movement. I think it all started with the Mt. Gox and crypto investigators are still fascinated by it. So once we heard about hacking incidents, we will see a lot of tweet about it. Experts on the field and even some crypto enthusiast because everything is public in the blockchain.

So it will be very difficult for hackers to move the coins, without anyone noticing it, specially if it involves huge amount of cryptos.

[worle1bm]

Cryptocurrency intelligence firm reported that CipherTrace’s Q3, 2018, cryptocurrency thefts had already reached $927 million.

Previously CipherTrace second-quarter report said, the company identified that there were more thefts during the first half of 2018 compared to the entire year of 2017 alone. Some $731 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from exchanges with some of the most notable hacks including that of Japanese exchange Coincheck at $530 million, and BitGrail that lost some $195 million dollars’ worth of tokens.

As of the Q3 report, the number now stands at $927 million lost in cyber attacks and CipherTrace predicts that this trend will continue. By the end of the year, they say, thefts will add up to well over $1 billion.

Thanks for the news and i was surprised to see the numbers as million of dolllars worth crypto are being stolen every year by the hackers from trading companies and individuals which has no record.We have heard many time that $10-$20 million of crypto were stolen from that exchange or so but what after nothing can be done to trace them.These things poses a threat to adoption of bitcoin and other altcoins in the global market as governmemt think it as unsecured decentralized mode of payment which can cause loss to the country.

[bohr]

It is a huge amount. Hackers nowadays are focusing to steal the crypto funds, especially the crypto exchanges, and unfortunately, they reached a good level of success in many cases. Lastly, we remember the hacking of MyEtherWallet and Cryptopia, just for examples. There are other big amounts stolen by getting the private keys of the BTC and ETH wallets.

I think there are underground hackers that really targets crypto exchanges. Those guys are dedicated and I'm sure they also worked 24x7 to find any loopholes on a exchanges. And these guys are cyber criminals and they don't work alone, they work as a group and I even read news that they could be sponsored by a certain nation to wreck havok and still crypto for their own sake.

It's really disheartening to hear that, but what can we do, unless exchanges patch all the loopholes and exploits, those hackers or cyber criminals will continue to do it and stole money from us.

It was disheartening but it was to be expected, exchanges are moving an enormous amount of money every day and they are doing it in a type of currency that once stolen cannot be gotten back, this is simply too tempting to hackers, which is why I have always thought that one of the best ways to defend yourself from them is simply to not bring attention to yourself and never reveal your holdings but unfortunately for exchanges that is not something they can do.

[DeathProxy]

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology have been clamouring for mainstream adoption ever since,  but these kind of news is being reported about crypto always then mainstream adoption might be far off. All crypto related busienss within the  crypto space needs to build a strong security wall and defense system which will be hard for criminals to exploit and hack.  This will reduce vulnerabilities if crypto system and thus will reduce news of hacks and loss of money.  Crypto community needs all the good news it can get now if adoption is to be achieved

[Yaunfitda]

It is a huge amount. Hackers nowadays are focusing to steal the crypto funds, especially the crypto exchanges, and unfortunately, they reached a good level of success in many cases. Lastly, we remember the hacking of MyEtherWallet and Cryptopia, just for examples. There are other big amounts stolen by getting the private keys of the BTC and ETH wallets.

I think there are underground hackers that really targets crypto exchanges. Those guys are dedicated and I'm sure they also worked 24x7 to find any loopholes on a exchanges. And these guys are cyber criminals and they don't work alone, they work as a group and I even read news that they could be sponsored by a certain nation to wreck havok and still crypto for their own sake.

It's really disheartening to hear that, but what can we do, unless exchanges patch all the loopholes and exploits, those hackers or cyber criminals will continue to do it and stole money from us.

It was disheartening but it was to be expected, exchanges are moving an enormous amount of money every day and they are doing it in a type of currency that once stolen cannot be gotten back, this is simply too tempting to hackers, which is why I have always thought that one of the best ways to defend yourself from them is simply to not bring attention to yourself and never reveal your holdings but unfortunately for exchanges that is not something they can do.

Well I have to disagree though mate, I mean it's the exchange responsibilities to protect our assets within their platform. In some sense if they've been hacked at least they should have the audacity to return our money back right?

Anyways, we can still salvage it though, at some point we shouldn't be putting a lot of money in an exchange and then expect nothing to happen. We have to think that crypto money is not safe at any given time whether in an exchange or even in our own wallet so we really need to be very very careful and should understand how to protect our assets by now.

[btc_angela]

Well I have to disagree though mate, I mean it's the exchange responsibilities to protect our assets within their platform. In some sense if they've been hacked at least they should have the audacity to return our money back right?

Anyways, we can still salvage it though, at some point we shouldn't be putting a lot of money in an exchange and then expect nothing to happen. We have to think that crypto money is not safe at any given time whether in an exchange or even in our own wallet so we really need to be very very careful and should understand how to protect our assets by now.

But the thing is that there are newbies every minutes here, being suckered by crypto exchanges because they think that they can make huge profits in an instant and keep all their profits in a trading platform, but as the saying goes in crypto sphere, "not your keys, not your coins" and I do hope that beginners won't have to go to a painful experience to realised this.

[iv4n]

I didn't notice this topic before, its interesting to know how much money is stolen in crypto. I made a quick research about this topic and I found some interesting informations. One of the articles I would like to share is https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/29/crime-still-plague-cryptocurrencies-as-1point7-billion-was-stolen-last-year-.html, in 2018 1.7 billion dollars was stolen from investors! Of that total, around 1 billion was taken from exchanges. You can read more about it in this article.
One more interesting article is https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/08/15/hackers-stole-over-4-billion-from-crypto-crimes-in-2019-so-far-up-from-1-7-billion-in-all-of-2018/#9691c9055f58, we have the same trend in 2019, hackers stole over 4 billion dollars, up from 1.7 billion in all of 2018. Interesting beginning of the article "2019 is shaping up as the year of the “exit scam” according to a new study" and when you think about it, it really is like that, we have seen many exit scams this year.
Well I wish you good reading, articles are very interesting, I will try to find more about this, I would like to find some numbers about how much money hackers took since the beginning of crypto, I doubt I can find accurate info about that, but even some rough calculation would be good.

[Sexaphiliac]

I think as more people enter into the cryptocurrency markets, it's likely more of such cases will be recorded. More scam platforms (exchanges, wallets) will definitely be the bane of  the cryptoworld next bull run.

[Jating]

I think as more people enter into the cryptocurrency markets, it's likely more of such cases will be recorded. More scam platforms (exchanges, wallets) will definitely be the bane of  the cryptoworld next bull run.

Good point, if crypto market will start its bull run, more scammers will appear in the crypto space, and obviously those numbers will rise exponentially.

At least though, we should help those newbie how to practice good and safe way to protect their assets so that they will not be a victim of scammers or cyber criminals.

[tracey77]

The more bitcoins are mined, the more often they are stolen, that's normal because the value/popularity increase all time and frauds are common. I really hope there will be some regulations in the future to prevent that sort of thing. Until then the only option to reclaim stolen cryptocurrencies is to use platform concentrated on such stuff. It's essential to pay attention to the background of a company we want to gain help from. For instance Coinfirm which cooperates with Binance or PKO Bank Polski.

[Lanatsa]

The more bitcoins are mined, the more often they are stolen, that's normal because the value/popularity increase all time and frauds are common. I really hope there will be some regulations in the future to prevent that sort of thing. Until then the only option to reclaim stolen cryptocurrencies is to use platform concentrated on such stuff. It's essential to pay attention to the background of a company we want to gain help from. For instance Coinfirm which cooperates with Binance or PKO Bank Polski.

More often they are stolen because the bitcoin been mined is more nowadays? Total nonsense for you to say.Yes, its popularity do increases up together into its price which is the main reason why hackers/scammers do target out to accumulate btc in all sorts of ways.Frauds and scams are typical things not only to this market but also on other traditional markets that we had known.The thing here on crypto that its too hard to trace once those coins being stolen, tracing is almost impossible that's why this is the perfect recipe and place for those who are really tending to scam big time.

[romero121]

I think as more people enter into the cryptocurrency markets, it's likely more of such cases will be recorded. More scam platforms (exchanges, wallets) will definitely be the bane of  the cryptoworld next bull run.

Good point, if crypto market will start its bull run, more scammers will appear in the crypto space, and obviously those numbers will rise exponentially.

At least though, we should help those newbie how to practice good and safe way to protect their assets so that they will not be a victim of scammers or cyber criminals.

When someone enters into the cryptocurrency network the main focus is to earn. The same is being used as the key to trap them. There will be followup with ponzi schemes, multipliers, softwares, cloud miners and in various forms. Here people get a mentality, why don't we give a try. In most cases even after knowing what is happening around people take risk and end up losing the funds.

As stated everyone should help each other, and the same is happening in the forum. Here proper guidance needs to be given for the ways by which earnings in terms of cryptocurrency is possible. If one has learned it then it is easy to stop people getting into traps.

[Gyfts]

The dark side of crypto's that people tend not to talk about. Fraud is easy and it happens a lot. You deal with fiat currencies and there's the ability to trace transactions and follow the paper trail. With Bitcoin, you're not left with much if your money gets stolen. The more adoption Bitcoin gets by naive investors or traders, the more scams that are going to happen.

[btc_angela]

The dark side of crypto's that people tend not to talk about. Fraud is easy and it happens a lot. You deal with fiat currencies and there's the ability to trace transactions and follow the paper trail. With Bitcoin, you're not left with much if your money gets stolen. The more adoption Bitcoin gets by naive investors or traders, the more scams that are going to happen.

I wouldn't say that it's a dark side of crypto, I mean crypto enthusiast knows that once their assets gets stolen here, it's bye-bye for their money. That's why we should really educate first ourselves when we wanted to enter this world because unlike fiat, money trails are hidden and obscure because there are so many ways to hide the scammers track.

[kro55]

CC is no doubt secure but when it gets hacked there is no way you can get your coins back like we do with fiat currency stored in banks. If you are having cryptocurrency take special care of your keys n use good wallets.

[Taskford]

The dark side of crypto's that people tend not to talk about. Fraud is easy and it happens a lot. You deal with fiat currencies and there's the ability to trace transactions and follow the paper trail. With Bitcoin, you're not left with much if your money gets stolen. The more adoption Bitcoin gets by naive investors or traders, the more scams that are going to happen.

I wouldn't say that it's a dark side of crypto, I mean crypto enthusiast knows that once their assets gets stolen here, it's bye-bye for their money. That's why we should really educate first ourselves when we wanted to enter this world because unlike fiat, money trails are hidden and obscure because there are so many ways to hide the scammers track.

How could you say it's not a dark side while there's a money involve for frauds and stolen asset by certain badass out there and we really need to educate ourselves for something new since the kind of style is evolving and there are so many things that we need to be careful with.

And also there are hardware wallets that is safe for us to use so that the chances for getting attack is to low and maybe it's good for use to always use escrow when dealing someone especially if we use crypto.

[Yaunfitda]

And to make things worst in the market, another South Korean Exchanges has been reported to be hacked, this time it's Upbit:

In its statement, the exchange emphasized that it deemed the 342,000 ETH transaction to be the only irregular transaction on the ledger, alluding to a number of other large-scale transfers that it said were related to the exchange moving assets between hot and cold storage wallets.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/signs-point-to-inside-job-in-upbit-crypto-exchange-hack-says-commentator

I really don't know what to say, $50 Million worth of money has been stolen again and I'm sure lots of negative news will come out again to undermine crypto specially from it's detractors.