FX.co ★ Crypto's biggest hacks and heists

On March 23, in the latest cyberheist to hit the digital asset sector, hackers stole cryptocurrency worth almost $615 million from a blockchain project linked to the popular online game Axie Infinity

Ronin, a network that allows the transfer of crypto coins across different blockchains, said that hackers had stolen nearly 173,600 ether tokens and 25.5 million USD Coin tokens. This theft is considered one of the largest on record.

Here are some of the other major thefts that have plagued the crypto sector since bitcoin originated in 2008.

In August 2021, hackers stole around $610 million from Poly Network, a platform that facilitates peer-to-peer token transactions. The hackers behind the heist later returned nearly all of the stolen funds.

In January 2018, hackers stole cryptocurrency then worth around $530 million from Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck.

The hack raised questions in Japan about the regulation of the digital asset market. South Korea's intelligence agency said at the time that a North Korean hacking group might have been behind the heist.

In one of the earliest and most high-profile cryptocurrency hacks, between 2011 and 2014, bitcoins worth close to $500 million were stolen from the Mt.Gox exchange in Tokyo, the world's largest at that time.

Mt.Gox, which once handled 80% of the world's bitcoin trade in early 2014, filed for bankruptcy after the hack was revealed and some 24,000 customers lost access to their funds.

Last month, DeFi site Wormhole was hit by a $320 million heist when hackers stole 120,000 digital tokens connected to the second-largest cryptocurrency, ether.

A year before that event, the crypto arm of Chicago-based Jump Trading started partnering with Wormhole, later it replaced the funds "to make community members whole and support Wormhole now as it continues to develop".