2021 saw 20+ hacks where at least $10M in digital currencies were stolen from a crypto exchange or project, with $100M+ stolen in at least six cases
It's not just lucky investors getting rich from crypto. — Hackers have made off with billions of dollars in virtual assets in the past year … Tweets: @rich_goldberg , @eriksherman , and @kevincollier Tweets: Richard Goldberg / @rich_goldberg : “One of the biggest heists happened this month, when the crypto trading platform Bitmart said hackers stole almost $200 million after they broke into a company account.” https://www.nbcnews.com/... Erik Sherman / @eriksherman : Crypto is a safe store of value ... until there's a price crash or somebody steals it. https://twitter.com/... Kevin Collier / @kevincollier : Tried to take stock of the mind-boggling scale of crypto exchange hacks this year. It often means stealing tens or hundreds of millions per pop, and the perpetrators rarely get caught. By contrast, the average American bank robbery is for less than $5,000. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Crypto theft was already an industry-scale problem before this year: CipherTrace counted $1.7B stolen from exchanges and investors in 2018's 400%+ surge, so the 2021 tally of 20+ ten-million-dollar-plus hacks — with at least six clearing $100M — marks a step change, not a first incident.
The trajectory has only steepened since: researchers tracked ~$2.9B taken across 37 hacks in just 38 weeks by April 2022, nearly matching all of 2021's $3.2B total, and TRM found H1 2024 thefts up 110% YoY with five large attacks accounting for 70% of everything stolen. The BitMart breach — almost $200M via a compromised company account — is the December capstone on that record year.
First-order effects
- BitMart customers are the immediate losers, with almost $200M drained through a single breached company account — one of at least six 2021 incidents where losses topped $100M.
- Every exchange and project on the wrong side of the 20+ threshold now faces direct user compensation demands and an urgent audit of hot-wallet and account-access controls.
Second-order effects
- Rival platforms must respond with heavier security spending and third-party audits, turning custody infrastructure from back-office cost into a competitive selling point as users weigh where assets are safe.
- Because five large attacks accounted for 70% of crypto stolen in H1 2024 per TRM, attackers concentrate on the biggest targets — pushing large exchanges and bridge projects to become de facto high-value fortresses while smaller projects inherit outsized relative risk.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — Chainalysis tied 2024's ~84% YoY jump partly to rising crypto prices — theft scales with market value, meaning every bull cycle mechanically funds a larger attacker economy and hardens the legitimacy gap between crypto and traditional finance.
- Sustained billion-dollar annual losses give regulators a standing case for mandating custody standards and disclosure rules for exchanges, shifting security from voluntary practice to compliance requirement.
The trend: Crypto theft is scaling with the market itself — record years follow price surges, attacks concentrate on the largest custodians, and security spending is becoming a permanent tax on the industry's growth.