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Crime The Almighty Buck

$3 Billion In Cryptocurrency Stolen This Year. So Far. (cbsnews.com) 59

Posted by EditorDavid from the lost-wallets dept.
"Hackers are on a roll in 2022, stealing over $3 billion in cryptocurrency," writes Slashdot reader quonset (citing figures from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis). "And the year isn't over yet.

"For comparison, in 2021, only $2.1 billion in crypto currency was stolen during the entire year."

CBS News reports: A big chunk of that $3 billion, around $718 million, was taken this month in 11 different hacks, Chainalysis said in a series of tweets posted Wednesday. ctober is now the biggest month in the biggest year ever for hacking activity, with more than half the month still to go," the company tweeted.

In past years, hackers focused their efforts on attacking crypto exchanges, but those companies have since strengthened their security, Chainalysis said. These days, cybercriminals are targeting "cross-chain bridges," which allow investors to transfer digital assets and data among different blockchains.... Cross-chain bridges remain a major target for hackers, with three bridges breached this month and nearly $600 million stolen, accounting for 82% of losses this month and 64% of losses all year," Chainalysis said....

All told, Chainalysis said there have been 125 hacks so far this year.
"Cryptocurrency is not federally regulated or FDIC insured like a bank account," the article concludes, "which means if an account gets hacked, the government will not work to restore a customer's funds."
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$3 Billion In Cryptocurrency Stolen This Year. So Far. More

$3 Billion In Cryptocurrency Stolen This Year. So Far.

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  • Consider This (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NoWayNoShapeNoForm ( 7060585 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @01:39PM (#62968925)
    How much energy was consumed to generate that "paper wealth"...energy that could have been used for compassionate uses?

    • one and zeros. thats it, thats all. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It must be worth something! We stole it!
      • How many cars were stolen? Whatâ(TM)s the value of retail theft? Theft of jewelry? Theft of currency? How does that compare to the total sum of the value of those objects?
      • That loss estimate is about as realistic as the MPAAs loss-due-to-piracy figures. A recent recalculation based on current market values puts actual loss at... $1.57, correct as of 11:29:31pm, but it will have changed by the time I click "Submit".

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      Nobody actually cares about compassion. Question you should be asking it's how much more with your electricity bill because of Bitcoin and crypto.

      Crypto miners by electricity in bulk at the cheapest rates they can get. But there's a limited supply of the cheap electricity. When they're buying all of the cheap electricity you can't buy it. Or more specifically your power company can't buy it sooner or later they're going to pass those costs on to you.

      Cryptocurrency costs consumers real money. Even if

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        Okay FP branch, though I want to consider the "value" assessment. Where is that "$3 billion" supposed to have come from? And where did it go? Someone had the opinion it was worth that much when it was stolen? Or is that supposed to the value at the latest exchange rates?

        I don't put much value on fools gold or fools' opinions of value.

        But I have this great new algorithm for a new cryptocurrency that is a SURE THING to cause another YUGE Gold Rush! /s

        • Okay FP branch, though I want to consider the "value" assessment. Where is that "$3 billion" supposed to have come from?

          The life savings of "investors".

          (Aka "the people at the bottom of the pyramid")

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shanen ( 462549 )

            Sort of concurrence, but I think a lot of it came from nowhere and went back to the same place. Like when the stock market "loses" trillions because the "market caps" dropped when the stock prices burped.

            • If a thousand people buy a coin for $1, then some idiot comes along and buys another one for $1000, the people hyping the coin will claim the coin is now worth $1000 and that they've majicked almost a million $$$ out of thin air. Aren't they incredibly smart?

              Reality check: All that money doesn't exist until the original thousand people have all sold their coins for $1000.

              (which will never happen)

      • "there's a limited supply of cheap electricity" A principle that is just as made up as cryptocurrency, in practical terms.
        • No it's not a made-up concept. Some forms of electricity cost more than others to produce. The most common example is electricity from hydroelectric which is super cheap being bought up leaving only the more expensive electricity from coal or gas powered turbines. There's also wind and solar which often cost much less once the installation is in place resulting in lower prices to buy that power.

          If the cryptocurrency miners are sucking down all the cheap wind, solar and hydroelectric or even nuclear then

  • "Only" $2.1 Billion stolen last year (Score:3)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @01:43PM (#62968943)

    Something about "a fool and his money"...

    • And this estimate comes from Chainalysis, which has built a reputation for very conservative estimates of criminal activity in cryptocurrencies, so it's probably significantly worse than this.

  • It's way, way more than that (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @01:48PM (#62968955)
    When Ethereum & Bitcoin's value plummeted the ponzi schemers made out great and anyone who bought in got screwed. That's the real theft. Not what was stole from the ponzi schemers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Anybody who bough it was hoping to do the same to those buying later. The only people that got screwed were wannabe ponzi schemers that were too stupid to get it right.

  • Same with physical things, except the whole physically mugging you/breaking into your house part.

    As with all new technologies, security best practices on the user level and the system level will only be battle proven by the people up to no good.

  • Nothing of Value??? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Art Challenor ( 2621733 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @02:06PM (#62968989)
    And nothing of value was lost?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      And nothing of value was lost?

      Exactly right.

      $5 Billion in crypto has been stolen over the last 2 years. *BUT* that number is based on converting it into real money. Which you can't, because converting 5 Billion worth of crypto into real money is not actually possible. At best, you can convert a small amount into real money and *MAYBE* find someone who will give you some small amount of goods/services in exchange for a little of your fake money.

      But, in reality. all of that crypto is not actually "worth" anywhere near $5 Billion

      • Yet it counted on balance sheets as assets, which means it counted as growth of wealth, which means the Fed printed money for it, which means real assets went up in cost, ergo inflation.

  • ... and nothing of value was lost (Score:3)

    by itsme1234 ( 199680 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @02:10PM (#62968993)

    But seriously, how do you even define "stolen"? Some people wanted to participate in some fancy mathematical game where you can get ahead by throwing some serious computing power into it. And some people "cheated"(*), taking a peak when some left their data exposed or went and cracked some systemes to get a clue and get ahead in the game. Sure, that can be (or not) a crime, can be one much worse than theft (you wouldn't steal a car :-) ) but still, where is "stolen" coming from?

    (*) note that as far as the game is concerned there is no notion of cheating, if they can fulfill the mathematical conditions that's it, they're a legitimate player with a lot of power-ups.

  • Stealing who again? (Score:3)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @02:38PM (#62969055)

    Who's into cryptocurrency? Scam artists and greedy suckers. At this point, with all that's been going on around cryptocurrencies and their "value" falling dramatically, there are no innocent victims left in that craptastic world anymore. If you're still in this game in 2022, you know, and I won't shed a tear for you if you lose your ill-gotten wealth to some hackers.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yep, same here. These idiots are doing it to themselves by greed and completely ignoring that there are good reason the actual financial industry is to heavily regulated these days. Nobody in the crypto-"currency" space is a victim. They are all perpetrators, some are just less capable than others.

    • Who's into cryptocurrency?

      SuperKendall.

      Scam artists and greedy suckers.

      Oh, you already mentioned him. Sorry.

  • 3B of hot air... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @02:47PM (#62969091)

    Do not forget that anybody trying to cash out a larger amount will immediately crash the house of cards this whole thing is.

  • Most cryptocurrencies have given up on mining and switched to proof of stake, NFT's have lost 99% of their value and volume, it is too hard to use legitimately and any use puts you at risk of theft, hacking or sanctions. No ordinary person should even think about getting into cryptocurrency anymore. It was a fun toy back in the early 2010s, I still have a physical Bitcoin, but it is no longer a useful technology. Hopefully scammers will suck out the remaining value and no bona fide business will touch it.

  • Zero Sympathy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheReaperD ( 937405 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @03:14PM (#62969179)

    I have zero sympathy for these idiots. They love to tout that cryptocurrency is "free from the guberm'nt!" and now they're paying the price for their stupidity. They love how it's unregulated, similar to gold in concept (except you don't actually own anything!), and hard to tax. Now, they get to see the flip side of that. Your money is stolen, easily, and no one is going to help you get it back nor is it insured by anybody. To bad, so sad. You hate the guberm'nt so much, or are so greedy, or both, that you go along with with obvious ponzi scheme only to have someone who hates the government more than you steal it all from you, whether from a hack or one of the real scam artists behind this cashing out before you. Suckers!

  • "Cryptocurrency is not federally regulated or FDIC insured like a bank account," the article concludes, "which means if an account gets hacked, the government will not work to restore a customer's funds."

    That's showing The Man! Freedom! No regulation! Fiat currency! State monopoly! Abuse of authority! Shackles of government! Sheeple!

    I am sure there are many more crypto-shibboleths that can be quoted.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      No that means the government won't PAY back the funds... something that rarely happens in any case. The government still has the same legal obligation to pursue and attempt to recover stolen cryptocurrency it has with any other property.

      • The government still has the same legal obligation to pursue and attempt to recover stolen cryptocurrency it has with any other property.

        Which is to say, none at all.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shaitan ( 22585 )

          False. Technically they can drop cases and don't have an obligation to protect citizens (disgusting imho) they do still have a mandate to enforce the law. Stealing cryptocurrency is no different than stealing any other property, it's illegal and the reality of stealing cryptocurrency almost certainly requires violating a whole host of federal laws.

          Will they recover your property? Who knows. But police and feds do recover and (eventually) return stolen property every day.

          • The government has no "legal obligation to pursue and attempt to recover stolen cryptocurrency", or stolen-anything-else for that matter, in any given case. I'm not sure where you got the idea that it does. If you believe I'm wrong, by all means - enlighten us all as to what you intend to put on the civil petition you file when law enforcement fails to do anything after you report your property has been stolen. I bet your answer will be a real hoot.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Shaitan ( 22585 )

              "The government has no "legal obligation to pursue and attempt to recover stolen cryptocurrency", or stolen-anything-else for that matter, in any given case."

              Which is what I said. What is being presented isn't false, it is misinformation which implies stolen cryptocurrency is different than 'stolen-anything-else', including stolen cash. This is false. Stealing your cryptocurrency is just like stealing anything else and no more or less likely to be pursued by law enforcement than the theft of anything else i

  • Call it by its name: Cartel currency. (Score:3)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @04:31PM (#62969363)
    If drug cartels and terror groups literally printed their own currency, this is exactly how it would operate: Giant speculative swings and massive heists. And make no mistake, they alone are the driving forces behind crypto. If crypto had to rely on libertarian cranks and teenagers who think it makes them cyberpunk, not a single one would be above US dollar parity.

    • Interesting.

      I would expect that gangs fighting over cryptoturf is part of the action. I can't remember if I saw any headlines about that...I don't follow this that closely.

      To paraphrase from today's MOTD: To be encrypted or not to be encrypted, that is the bottom line.

      • The cartels themselves probably aren't doing too many heists, but you get massive thefts as a general phenomenon whenever lots of money accumulates in crime-specific enterprises. Most of the owners can't complain to authorities, and in an electronic theft, they probably can't resort to vengeance like they could against stickup crews on the street. So it's likely cartels who have most of the coin, and probably North Koreans and Russians ripping them off just because they can.

        • Too true. Anybody who participates in the cryptoscam is a supporter of Russia and North Korea.

          • For sure. A national currency is accountable to the acts of a state, but the illusion of an anonymous global currency simply rewards the most powerful despotic states, who will marshal the stolen wealth of their starving slave populations to generate or snatch that crypto. Privacy is not the same concept as concealment, and it's obvious which of the two ideas crypto is aimed at.

  • What a shame (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @04:51PM (#62969405)

    I have these three magical beans here, each worth a billion, they could have traded for it.

  • For perspective... (Score:3)

    by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @06:37PM (#62969659)

    About $30 Billion was stolen in phone scams. That was just in the US unlike this global figure so it is a bit tangerines to grapefruits but you get the idea.

  • Zelensky can steal that much before breakfast. Crypto thieves are a bunch of losers.

  • Never attribute malice that which can be explained by stupidity.

    Except in the case of crypto, where it's both. The scale of probably has swung enough that it should be more than safe to assume that a significant chunk of the "stolen" crypto were planned cashouts.

  • Stolen by hackers or seized by trigger happy governments.

    There *is* no safe place in the world to keep your money.

    If you get too rich the government will just confiscate it.

  • I would have to live and work for tens of thousands of years to make that much money and my career length is shortened by having done things like go to graduate school. Had I just focused my effort o exfiltrating the contents of "crypto currency" "wallets" I would be retired by now. In general, I am philosophically opposed to a life of crime. But in this case it's somewhat of a Robin Hood endeavor. The crytpo-bros got their cash swindling little old ladies out of their savings. If I steal it from those
  • So-called 'cryptocurrency' is a troll-meme to start with, and it was quickly picked up by professional criminals and those with criminal intent as a way of hiding their transactions. So of course there's always crime, like theft of it, surrounding it; what else did you expect?
    This will always be the case so long as cryptocurrency exists.
    Furthermore it's wildly wasteful of limited resources, which in many cases are stolen in order to 'produce' it.
    Anyone with even a partially-functioning moral compass or a

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