The list of victims from the largest hacks in cryptocurrency history includes a Vietnamese enterprise, following the recent attack that caused more than 1.4 billion USD in damages targeting Bybit.
The cryptocurrency exchange Bybit was attacked, resulting in the theft of over 1.4 billion USD on February 21, becoming the largest hack in the 15-year history of the cryptocurrency industry. Data from the analysis firm Cyvers showed that the impact of the hack was equivalent to more than 60% of the cryptocurrency funds stolen in 2024.
Theft incidents are increasingly common in the cryptocurrency industry. They not only raise concerns about the legality of the still-nascent market but can also cause millions in losses after chain collapses. Below are the largest attacks recorded in the history of cryptocurrency to date.
Bybit - 1.46 billion USD
According to a spokesperson for Bybit, the exchange was hacked and a cold wallet was compromised. The hacker then transferred tokens worth approximately 1.46 billion USD to a hot wallet to continue laundering the money. In a live broadcast on February 21, CEO Ben Zhou stated that this malicious trading activity was cleverly disguised, allowing the Bybit team to be outsmarted and approve the transaction.
"We saw the correct user interface, we saw the correct address, and then signed. It could be that all the signer’s computers were hacked and the user interface was altered," Zhou said.
The hack caused the entire cryptocurrency market to plummet, with users rushing to withdraw money from Bybit. A representative of the exchange stated that approximately 4,000 withdrawal orders were pending processing. About 70% of withdrawal transactions were still processed despite network congestion. The priority will be retail customers, followed by VIPs and institutions.
Bybit has been identified as the victim of the largest hack in cryptocurrency history. Onchain security detective ZachXBT identified the Lazarus Group, a hacking group believed to be from North Korea, as the possible perpetrator behind the hack. Currently, the involved parties have not provided specific comments on this information.
Ronin Network - 615 million USD
Before Bybit, Ronin Network (part of Sky Mavis) - a Vietnamese blockchain startup - was the victim of the largest attack in industry history. On the night of March 29, 2022, Ronin Network reported that they had been hacked, with two money transfer transactions totaling 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5 million USDC. With the ETH value at 3,400 USD at that time, this cryptocurrency amount equated to 615 million USD.
Recorded data shows that the attack occurred from March 23. The development team only discovered it after someone reported that they could not withdraw 5,000 ETH from the system. After investigation, the Ronin team confirmed that the attacker had targeted one of the company's employees.
The attacker exploited access from an employee to infiltrate Sky Mavis's infrastructure and gain control over the validation nodes. At that time, the company only controlled 4 out of 9 validation nodes and theoretically could not perform withdrawal transactions. However, by infiltrating the system, the hacker discovered a backdoor and found an additional validation node that was under the control of the decentralized organization Axie DAO.
Similar to the Bybit attack, Ronin Network was also identified as being attacked by the Lazarus Group. The company was only able to recover a small portion of the stolen funds.
Poly Network - 611 million USD
In 2021, hackers exploited the Poly Network cross-chain protocol to steal over 600 million USD in an attack described by the cybersecurity firm SlowMist as "well-planned and organized."
The attack drained Ethereum worth 273 million USD and 253 million USD from BNB Smart Chain, along with 85 million USD from the Polygon network.
According to Poly Network, the attacker had to return nearly all of the stolen funds.
BNB Chain - 568 million USD
In October 2022, the BNB Chain blockchain network of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance was hacked, resulting in the theft of assets worth approximately 568 million USD.
At that time, Cointelegraph reported that the perpetrator had exploited BSC Token Hub, a cross-chain bridge, by using a vulnerability to issue 2 million BNB. The hacker then continued to transfer 100 million USD to another network to launder.
Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, confirmed that the hack "created more BNB." He later announced the temporary suspension of BNB Smart Chain.
New Economy Movement (NEM) - 534 million USD
One of the major hacks targeting cryptocurrency occurred in 2018 when the Japanese exchange Coincheck was robbed of NEM tokens worth 534 million USD. The project was attacked just three years after its launch and is now considered "dead."
At that time, the hacker exploited hot wallets and conducted unauthorized transactions. All the stolen funds belonged to a user of the exchange. Subsequent reports indicated that the attack might have been related to a group of hackers who installed malware on the Coincheck employee's computer.
Finally, the exchange compensated the users for their losses.
FTX - 477 million USD
The FTX collapse remains one of the most serious incidents in the history of cryptocurrency. Previously, in November 2022, a series of unauthorized transactions drained 477 million USD from the exchange. By January 2023, the company announced that it had "found clues" to 415 million USD that was hacked.
Although the perpetrator could not be identified, the former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, stated that he believed the attack came from "a former employee or someone who had installed malware on that person's computer."
By January 2024, U.S. federal prosecutors identified three individuals involved in this attack. The hack did not immediately lead to the collapse of FTX but is one of the incidents frequently referenced when this exchange closed down.