Cyber criminals have stolen $4.3 billion in cryptocurrency from digital currency exchanges, investors and users in 2019.
Blockchain security company CipherTrace gave its summary crypto-related theft in its Anti-Money Laundering report that it shared with Cointelegraph on Aug. 12.
According to CipherTrace, outright thefts, scams and other kinds of misappropriation of funds from digital currency holders and trading platforms resulted in around $4.3 billion in losses throughout 2019. The report said:
Several trends continued or accelerated in the second quarter of 2019. Outright thefts as well as scams and other misappropriation of funds from cryptocurrency users and exchanges continued apace, netting criminals and fraudsters approximately $4.3 billion in aggregate for 2019. Insider thefts were by far the largest offenders, inflecting massive losses on investors and exchange users. 2019 could also turn out to be the year of the exit scam. On top of the QuadrigaCX disaster, which is updated in this report, one alleged Ponzi scheme in this quarter appears to have defrauded millions of users out of $2.9 billion in crypto assets. Other exit scams, such as Coinroom and Bitsane, are still under investigation and those losses are not included and this report’s total.
Rivalling robberies in the first quarter, hackers stole more than $124 million from exchanges and infrastructure in Q2, making a total of $480 million stolen from exchanges so far this year. While the total dollar value of Q2 2019 thefts would currently be dramatically higher due to the recovery of cryptocurrency prices from the lows of the crypto winter, this report uses the value of the lost loot at the time of the scam or robbery. Also, these numbers reflect only the losses that CipherTrace has validated; undoubtedly more losses occurred during the quarter. In the case of the Wall Street Market takedown, the principals were prevented from completing their $11 million exit scam (also not included in this report’s total) when authorities beat them to the punch by seizing that dark marketplace’s crypto and fiat assets.
However, dark markets and malware attacks tend to use other cryptocurrencies, including Etherium (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Monero (XMR), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Dogecoin (DOGE). The report states:
“The results show that privacy coins are barely used in dark markets and at dark vendor sites (e.g. only 4% of instances involve Monero (XMR). Instead, Bitcoin remains the coin of the realm in this shady world, with BTC used in 76% of dark market cases and ETC used in only 7% of instances.”
