The biggest crypto hack ever

Despite maturing to the trillion dollar asset class, the crypto world is still ripe with hacking and fraud. In fact, the worst thing ever It just happened.

Inexperienced users and malicious actors looking to exploit unstable cryptographic protocols have siphoned over $10 billion in funding over the past five years and found ample opportunity. According to chain analysis. And six of the past 11 years have peaked at a worth of $3.7 billion in 2022, seeing more than $1 billion in losses in hacks and exploits.

And 2025 has a rough start in that respect, with stolen funds this year almost coincide in 2024 total thanks to one large centralized exchange hack. This attack currently derives a list of the worst crypto hacks ever based on the value of the assets swiped during the violation.

1) Bibit – $1.4 billion

The biggest crypto hack ever More than 400,000 Ethereum at the time of hack ($1.4 billion at the time of hack) and other Ethereum-based tokens swiped from a Dubai-based centralized exchange Bybit cold wallet in February 2025.

The attack was confirmed by Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou. BenZhou has shown that the planned transfer will be manipulated and unconsciously handed over the funds to the attacker’s wallet.

Hack was like that Quickly linked by North Korean detectives by on-chain detectives State-sponsored Lazarus Group, an entity responsible for more $1.3 billion in cryptocurrency funds I’ll go through Hack only in 2024. The FBI later confirmed that the evidence pointed to Lazarus.

Despite the hugeness of the hack, Bibit is Handle all drawers And I fulfilled it Ethereum Gap Fast with a combination of loans, deposits and purchases for the second largest cryptocurrency.

In a preliminary report issued a few days after the attack, cybersecurity experts concluded that a North Korean hacker had occurred. I planted malicious code SAFE’s infrastructure is a wallet provider used by BYBIT.

2) PolyNetwork – $611 million

Polynetwork, a multi-chain interoperability protocol, experienced the second-largest crypto hack in 2021, losing around $611 million worth of various crypto assets in three separate chains.

The network developer confirmed the hack on August 10, 2021, asking for miners or burinators of Ethereum, polygons, and BNB chains (formerly Binance smart chains), and blacklist addresses associated with hacks for central exchange.

After immense pressure from the Crypto community, hackers began returning funds to the PolyNetwork within a day of the hack. I’ll finally be back Almost all funds within two weeks of the exploit. The assailant said the attack was “Just for fun“In a wild saga that contains numerous front and rear messages between hackers, polynetworks, and crypto communities.

3) BNB Chain – $570 million

On October 6, 2022, the hackers gained control of Binance Coins (BNB) worth approximately $570 million, using the BNB chain’s BSC token hub.

The attack allowed the malicious actor to grant himself two million new BNB tokens, convincing the Hub in the process. “A sophisticated counterfeit.”

After it was quickly identified as being an irregular activity, the chain first paused, and later stopped it after further identifying the hack. For quick action on the chain and its validators, Only about $100 million Of the $570 million, it was eventually sucked up from the chain.

4) Coincheck – $530 million

The oldest hack on the list, Japan’s Exchange Coincheck was the victim of a $530 million robbery in 2018 with a $523 million Nem token.

Over 260,000 exchange users will be affected, and the platform will refund approximately $400 million in its own cash. According to Guardian.

At the time, it was the biggest crypto hack in history. However, the value of stolen NEMs has decreased dramatically, and pricing of stolen assets Today’s price is $10.36 million.

Two years after the robbery, district court Tokyo has announced a seizure A small portion of the stolen tokens.

5) Ronin Network – $552 million

Ronin Network He was killed in a $552 million hack in March 2022. Like BNB Chain Exploit, Ethereum game sidechain’s The native bridge was targeted in an attack using a hacked private key, and was later pinned to North Korea’s Lazaro hacking group by the US Treasury Department.

After gaining access to the private key, the hacker was able to sign the transaction from five of the nine total network validators. This is the minimum requirement for approving a transaction. The hack occurred on March 23, but was disclosed by the network a week later, a week after the asset’s value tally of $622 million.

In the end, the hackers were able to access 173,650 wrapped Ethereum and 25.5 million USDC of stubcoins.

In September 2022, approximately $30 million of lost funds were recovered, marking the first time that North Korea was stolen. Hacking group seized. Ronin creator Sky Mavis pays back All affected users And the bridge was eventually reopened with a pool of validators growing to promote additional security protections and decentralization.

Edited by Andrew Hayward