[ad_1]
Cryptocurrency-related crimes slowed in 2020, but certain sectors within the cryptocurrency industry have become a new hotbed for criminal activity, a new report says.
Citing leading crypto analytics firm CipherTrace, Reuters reported on Nov.10 that total losses from cryptocurrency theft, hacks and fraud decreased from $ 4.4 billion in 2019 to $ 1.8 billion in the first 10 months of 2020. .
CipherTrace CEO Dave Jevans said the general decline in criminal activity in the cryptocurrency industry is the result of increased security measures:
“What we have seen is that exchanges and other cryptocurrency players have implemented more security procedures. […] They took the lead and implemented procedures to better protect their funds. So you’ll see fewer large-scale hacks. “
Despite a steep drop in crypto crimes this year, CipherTrace has seen a notable rise in hacking incidents in decentralized finance or DeFi. While DeFi hacks were “practically negligible” in 2019, they now account for 20% of cryptographic losses due to thefts and hacks, CipherTrace analysts found. “The surge in DeFi was what ultimately attracted the criminal hackers, causing the most hacks for the industry this year,” the report said.
Jevans said the DeFi industry has also become a “haven for money launderers”. Because DeFi projects are devoid of design permission, they often lack centralized project security verification tools. Jevans said:
“Businesses and individuals have brought DeFi products to market that have not undergone security verification and validation. […] So people are finding that there is a weakness here. “
CipherTrace’s latest analysis confirms previous reports that cryptocurrency hacks were on the decline in 2020. At the end of October, VPN provider Atlas VPN released a study claiming that the number of blockchain-related attacks in the first half of 2020 decreased more than three times compared to the same period in 2019.
