A look at the five biggest hacks in crypto history, second only to the Bybit theft

Author: Sam Bourgi, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Baishui, Golden Finance

On February 21, more than $1.4 billion was stolen from the cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, making it the largest single hack in the industry's 15-year history. According to Cyvers data, the attack accounts for more than 60% of all crypto funds stolen in 2024 in terms of value.

Hacking and scams have become commonplace in the cryptocurrency space, bringing a crisis of legitimacy to an industry that most people believe is unfairly treated for "facilitating crime." However, as Chainalysis data shows, legitimate use cases for cryptocurrencies are growing much faster than illegal activities.

Nevertheless, the hacker economy is still thriving, especially as cryptocurrency prices rise. According to Crystal Intelligence, Cumulative cryptocurrency hacks have reached $19 billion by mid-2024.

Here’s a list of some of the biggest cryptocurrency hacks in history — and how they pale in comparison to the latest Bybit breach.

After news of the Bybit breach came to light, Ethereum prices fell sharply. Source: Cointelegraph

Ronin Network

Before Bybit, Ronin Network was the victim of the largest cryptocurrency hack in history. In March 2022, the Ethereum sidechain built for the Axie Infinity play-to-earn game was exploited to steal more than $600 million worth of Ethereum and USDC.Ronin was only able to recover a small portion of the stolen funds.

The attack was blamed on the Lazarus Group, an organization allegedly linked to the North Korean government. The shadowy group is believed to have stolen $1.34 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2024 alone.

Since 2020, the group is believed to have laundered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of digital assets.

Poly Network

In 2021, hackers exploited cross-chain protocol Poly Network to steal more than $600 million worth of funds in what cybersecurity firm SlowMist called a "premeditated and organized" attack.

The attack stole $273 million from Ethereum, $253 million from BNB Smart Chain, and $85 million from the Polygon Network.At the time, it was considered the largest decentralized finance vulnerability ever.

According to Poly Network, the attackers ultimately returned almost all of the stolen funds, except for $33 million.

Before the latest Bybit theft, losses from cryptocurrency scams had been on a downward trend, with losses in December hitting the lowest level since 2024. Source: CertiK

BNB Chain Bridge

In October 2022, the BNB chain was hacked, resulting in a loss of approximately $568 million.As Cointelegraph reported at the time, the attacker exploited a vulnerability in the cross-chain bridge BSC Token Hub to issue 2 million BNB, and the attacker immediately bridged $100 million worth of stolen tokens to other networks.

Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, confirmed that the vulnerability "led to additional BNB." He subsequently announced the suspension of the BNB Smart Chain.

Coincheck

One of the earliest cryptocurrency attacks took place in early 2018 when $534 million worth of NEM tokens were stolen from the Japanese exchange Coincheck. XEM is the token of the New Economy Movement (NEM), which was launched in 2015.

The hackers stole the funds by exploiting a hot wallet and making multiple unauthorized transactions. All of the stolen funds belonged to exchange users. It was later reported that the attack may have been linked to a hacker group that installed a virus on Coincheck employees' computers.

The exchange pledged to compensate all 260,000 victims of the attack.

FTX

Just as FTX collapsed in November 2022, a series of unauthorized transactions cost the cryptocurrency exchange $477 million.

By January 2024, U.S. federal prosecutors had identified and charged three people suspected of carrying out the attack.