30s Summary

DeltaPrime, a decentralized finance liquidity protocol, was hacked for around $4.8 million in digital assets, primarily involving Arbitrum (ARB) and Avalanche (AVAX) tokens. This comes as part of a trend of increasing crypto thefts in 2024, reaching $753 million for Q3 alone. DeltaPrime operations have been paused on both blockchains pending investigation. According to Merkle Science, the thefts are increasingly down to inadequate personal storage and phishing attacks. This follows significant losses from previous phishing attacks and a hack on Indian crypto exchange WazirX, where over $230 million was taken.

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DeltaPrime, a decentralized finance liquidity protocol, was recently hacked and lost about $4.8 million worth of digital assets. This comes as the latest in a series of crypto crimes in 2024, with the total value of stolen assets potentially exceeding that of 2023.

In this hack, Arbirtum (ARB) and Avalanche (AVAX) tokens were taken. According to PeckShield, an on-chain intelligence firm, the culprit began the hack by contributing liquidity to the protocol. They’re still looking into the specifics.

In the meantime, the DeltaPrime team has chosen to hit pause on any protocol operations happening on both the Arbitrum and Avalanche blockchains due to the ongoing investigation.

This all is just part of a more significant trend of increasing security concerns in the crypto scene. Earlier in November, there was a hack on the M2 centralized exchange that resulted in a loss of $13.7 million in digital assets.

2024 is shaping up to be a big year for crypto hackers. In the third quarter alone, they swiped $753 million across 155 incidents, marking nearly 10% increase. From what we’ve seen so far, this year’s crypto thefts could end up surpassing 2023’s.

These thefts, however, aren’t all due to smart contract vulnerabilities. Mriganka Pattnaik, CEO of crypto risk and intelligence platform Merkle Science, has pointed out that personal storage practices and phishing attacks are increasingly becoming the sources of these incidents.

For instance, in May, there was a high-profile phishing attack where a trader was tricked into sending 99% of their funds to a hacker’s address, amounting to a total loss of $71 million.

Lastly, four months before DeltaPrime’s incident, we had seen another major hack where over $230 million was stolen from Indian cryptocurrency exchange, WazirX. This was the second-largest crypto hack of 2024 so far. Let’s hope we don’t have to deal with more of these headaches.