Cryptocurrency has progressed from its early wild speculative trading days to being hailed as a viable alternative to traditional, bank-controlled cash.

They’ve gained tremendous popularity with firms, such as IBM, Google, and Microsoft.

However, many blockchain and crypto innovations are still in their infancy, leaving them prone to hackers that use incredibly advanced tools to obtain access to digital coins. The following are amongst the most notable cryptocurrency raids that have occurred since 2018:

The largest crypto theft ever: $600 million (August 2021)

Hackers took $600 million in Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and USDC (USD Coin) by targeting loopholes in the Poly Network decentralized finance (DeFi) platform. Poly Network revealed the theft on Twitter, claiming that occurred during contract talks.

The Cajee Brothers’ $3.6 billion in Bitcoin (April 2021)

The brothers, Raees and Ameer Cajee, managers of ” Africrypt”; a currency conversion agency in Johannesburg, South Africa, ‘vanished’ with $3.6 billion in investments. They’ve been “missing” since they told investors about the hack in April.

Harvest Finance $24 million investment (October 2020)

Harvest Finance, a DeFi platform that allows users to trade and crop cryptocurrency minor profit payouts, was hacked and cryptocurrency assets worth $24 million were stolen. The hacker stole $13 million in USD Coin.

KuCoin platform $150 million (September 2020)

“Some big deposits” of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and ERC-20 tokens were identified by the Singapore-based crypto exchange.  Around $150 million was stolen, although the CEO claimed that most of it had already been retrieved.

CryptoCore Hacker gang $200 million (June 2020)

CyptoCore is a well-organized hacker organization based in Eastern Europe that is responsible for the theft of $200 million from several online cryptocurrency exchanges. They’ve been operational since 2018, targeting exchanges across the globe with the same method.

Upbit hack $50 million (November 2019)

A hacker managed to steal 342,000 Ethereum worth $50 million and sent it to an undisclosed location. The hacker utilized Upbits hot wallet to obtain access to their exchange.

Binance hack nets $40 million (May 2019)

Hackers gained access to the exchange’s hot wallet and stole 7000 Bitcoin. The hackers utilized advanced phishing methods, according to Binance, who investigated the breach.

BitGrail $195 million (February 2018)

BitGrail, an Italian exchange, was plundered $195 million in nano tokens. According to Coin Telegraph, BitGrail’s founder Francesco Firano and the nano development team may have been to blame for the lack of safety precautions.

Coincheck $534 million (January 2018)

The Japanese exchange platform Coincheck was hacked, and NEM coins worth $534 were stolen via a hot wallet. Hot wallets are typically more vulnerable to attacks because they are linked to the internet.