Author: Sam Bourgi, CoinTelegraph; Compiled by: Baishui, Golden Finance

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

Hacking and scams have become commonplace in the cryptocurrency space, creating a legitimacy crisis for an industry that most people believe is being treated unfairly for “encouraging crime.” However, as Chainalysis data shows, legal use cases for cryptocurrencies are growing much faster than illegal activity.

Nevertheless, the hacking economy is still booming, especially as cryptocurrency prices rise. According to Crystal Intelligence, the cumulative amount of cryptocurrency hackers has reached $19 billion by mid-2024.

The following is a list of some of the largest cryptocurrency hacks in history—and how they pale in comparison to the latest Bybit vulnerabilities.

Ethereum price fell sharply after the news of the BYbit vulnerability was exposed. Source: Cointelegraph

Before Bybit, Ronin Network was the largest victim of cryptocurrency hacking in history. In March 2022, the Ethereum sidechain built for Axie Infinity’s play-and-earning game was exploited, stealing more than $600 million worth of Ethereum and USDC. Ronin can only recover a small portion of the stolen funds.

The attack was blamed on the Lazarus Group, a group allegedly linked to North Korea. It is believed that in 2024 alone, the shadow group stole $1.34 billion worth of cryptocurrency.

Since 2020, the organization has been believed to have laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in digital assets.

In 2021, hackers stole more than $600 million worth of funds using the cross-chain protocol Poly Network, which cybersecurity company SlowMist called a "long-planned, organized" attack.

This attack stole $273 million from Ethereum, $253 million from BNB smart chains, and $85 million from the Polygon network. At the time, it was considered the largest decentralized financial loophole ever.

According to Poly NeThe attackers eventually returned almost all the stolen funds, except for $33 million, according to the two.

Before the latest Bybit theft incident, losses caused by cryptocurrency fraud have been on a downward trend, with losses in December hitting The lowest level since 2024. Source: CertiK

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

Former Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng confirmed that the vulnerability “caused additional BNB.” He then announced the suspension of BNB smart chains.

One of the earliest cryptocurrency attacks occurred in early 2018 when Japanese exchange Coincheck was stolen $534 million worth of NEM tokens. XEM is the token of the New Economic Movement (NEM) and was launched in 2015.

The hackers stole funds by leveraging hot wallets and conducting multiple unauthorized transactions. All stolen funds belong to exchange users. It was later reported that the attack might have been linked to a hacker group that installed a virus on Coincheck employee computers.

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

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

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