Crypto traders have lost a staggering $303 million worth of digital assets in cryptocurrency exploits and hacker attacks this month, according to security audit firm CertiK. This makes July the worst month this year so far in terms of stolen value. The report comes as decentralized finance (DeFi) investors are still reeling from the exploit of Curve Finance, a key infrastructure in the DeFi ecosystem, which siphoned off some $52 million in digital assets. Earlier this month, roughly $125 million of assets were drained from blockchain bridging protocol MultiChain.
DeFi protocols are the most vulnerable parts of the crypto ecosystem, said Ari Redbord, head of legal and government affairs of blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs. Exploits are still happening at an ‘unprecedented’ speed and scale. Of the $303 million this month, investors lost about $285 million in exploit attempts and hacks including the MultiChain and Curve attacks, per CertiK’s data. Flash loans were used to drain roughly $8.7 million of assets, while exit scams cost investors about $8.6 million.