Most Notable and Costly
Cryptocurrency Hacks and Scams

(Updated Aug 2018)

Much Gained, Much Lost

Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2009, the development of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies have certainly experienced a unique set of challenges. Due to the blockchain’s unique characteristics of being anonymous, immutable and decentralized, hackers have shown a high level of interest in cryptocurrencies ever since its early days.

This interest in Bitcoin and other altcoins significantly increased in 2011 when, for the first time ever, the price per Bitcoin rose above $10, proving its growth potential and the possibility of a real-world adoption.

The growth of the Bitcoin-related community such as the Bitcoin forum, also developed in 2011, marked the beginning of increased public reporting of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency scams and hacks.

Below, you can find our curated list of the most notable Bitcoin and altcoins hacks ever reported. We will continue to actively curate this list to expose the magnitude of harm cryptocurrency hacks have on the crypto community as a whole.

This list is by no means comprehensive for all of the losses related to cryptocurrency hacks and scams. Actually, most of the scams and frauds related to cryptocurrencies occur much more frequently to individuals in smaller quantities, which often go unreported. This is one of many reasons why we also created Crypto Aware, as well as established the First Responder Network to help record and combat crypto-related scams and frauds.

The future success of cryptocurrencies and blockchain-related technologies resides in benefiting and contributing to the well-being of its users, please consider helping us in the battle to keeping our crypto-community safer and free of scams and hacks.

The Increasingly Frequent Attacks On The Crypto Community

2018 is on track to becoming the worst year of crypto losses in terms of assets stolen. So far, just in the first half of the year alone, the reported loss has grown to over $1.73 Billion USD. That is more than any other 6 months period in crypto history and more than half of total recorded loss since 2011. We have also witnessed significant attacks on altcoins in the past year. Below are some of the highlights from our curated loss data. Please note that all USD estimated value is based on average market value at the time of the event.

  • Biggest Bitcoin hack: Mt Gox. Around 800,000 BTC, equivalent of $450 million USD at time of event was lost.
  • Biggest Ethereum hack: The DAO incident. About 3,600,000 ETH, equivalent of $60 million USD, was lost in this hack. This caused the eventual hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain.
  • Most notable recent hack: Coincheck reported loss of 500,000,000 NEM, equivalent of $400 million USD. This event raised serious discussion regarding crypto exchange regulations.
  • Company with most notable hacks recorded: Bitcoinica wins the spot with 3 recorded hacks, resulting in a total reported loss of over 78,000 BTC
  • Estimated USD Loss From Top Hacks and Scams (2011-2018 YTD): ~ $2.3 Billion USD
  • Estimated Crypto Loss From Top Hacks and Scams (2011-2018 YTD):
  • bitcoin symbol 1.7 million BTC
  • ethereum symbol 4.56 million ETH
  • litecoin symbol 304k LTC
  • nem xem symbol 500 million NEM
  • tether symbol 30 million USDT
  • nano symbol 17 million NANO
  • stellar symbol 670k XLM
  • aston symbol 93 million ATX
  • pundix symbol 2.8 billion NPXS
  • pundix symbol 831 million DENT
  • ripple symbol 5.2 million XRP
  • bancor symbol 3.2 million BNT
NameReported Loss (Crypto)Reported Loss (USD)Occurred OnSource(s)
Bancor Exchange hack24,984 ETH
229 million NPXS
3.2 million BNT
$23,500,000July 2018Bancor Official Twitter
Cointelegraph
Bithumb Exchange hack2,016 BTC
2,219 ETH
692 BCH
5,227,490 XRP
$17,000,000June 2018Cointelegraph
Bithumb Report
Coinrail Exchange hack1,927 ETH
2.6 billion NPXS
93 million ATX
831 million DENT
$40,000,000June 2018Coindesk
Misconfigured Ethereum Clients Incident38,680 ETH$20,000,0002018 OngoingBleeping Computer
MyEtherWallet DNS hack215 ETH$152,000April 2018Forbes
Coinsecure Theft438 BTC$3,300,000April 2018Coindesk
South Korean Bitcoin Pyramid SchemeN/A$20,000,000April 2018Coindesk
GainBitcoin India Ponzi SchemeN/A$300,000,000April 2018Cointelegraph
Dantang coin PonziN/A$13,000,000April 2018CryptocurrencyNews
iFan/Pincoin Token ScamN/A$650,000,000April 2018VNExpress
BTC Global Ponzi ScamN/A$50,000,000Mar 2018Coindesk
Coinhoarder Phishing Scams (ongoing)N/A$50,000,000Feb 2018Cisco Research
Seele ICO Theft 2,162 ETH$1,800,000Feb 2018Cointelegraph
Bee Token Phishing890 ETH$928,000Feb 2018Coindesk
BitGrail Theft17,000,000 NANO$170,000,000Feb 2018Bitcoinist
BlackWallet Theft670,000 XLM$400,000Jan 2018Coindesk
Coincheck500,000,000 NEM$400,000,000Jan 2018Bloomberg
Youbit korean exchange hackExact amount not reported. Lost 17% of assets?Dec 2017Bloomberg
NiceHash Hack4,700 BTC$62,000,000Dec 2017Reddit
Coindesk
Parity Wallet suicides513,774 ETH$160,000,000Nov 2017Paritytech
Tether Token Hack$30,950,010 USDT$30,000,000Nov 2017Coindesk
Enigma Project Scam1,500 ETH$500,000Aug 2017Coindesk
Parity wallet hack153,000 ETH$30,000,000July 2017Coindesk
Coindash ICO hack43,500 ETH$10,000,000July 2017Coindesk
Yabizon (Youbit)3,816 BTC$5,300,000April 2017Bitcoin
Asian-European Currency Ponzi ScamN/A$47,000,000Jan 2017Cointelegraph
OneCoin Pyramid Scheme (ongoing)N/A (actual scale unknown since the blockchain was never operational, actual loss could be much much more than estimated $50m)$50,000,000Dec 2016Bitsonline
Bitcurex2,300 BTC$1,500,000Oct 2016Bitcoin
Bitfinex120,000 BTC$77,000,000Aug 2016Arstechnica
DAO hack3,600,000 ETH$60,000,000June 2016Coindesk
Gatecoin250 BTC
185,000 ETH
$2,140,000May 2016Coindesk
ShapeShift469 BTC
5,800 ETH
1,900 LTC
$230,000April 2016Shapeshift
Coindesk
Bitcoin
Kipcoin3,000 BTC$690,000Feb 2015NewsBTC
Bter7,170 BTC$1,750,000Feb 2015Coindesk
Bitstamp19,000 BTC$5,200,000Jan 2015Arstechnica
796 Exchange1,000 BTC$230,000Jan 2015Cointelegraph
BitPay5,000 BTC$1,800,000Dec 2014Coindesk
Mintpal3,894 BTC$1,300,000Oct 2014Bitcoin
Cryptsy13,000 BTC
300,000 LTC
$9,500,000July 2014Coindesk
Poloniex97 BTC$64,000March 2014Coinsutra
Bitcointalk
CryptoRush Theft950 BTC
2,500 LTC
$570,000March 2014CCN
Flexcoin Theft896 BTC$600,000March 2014Coindesk
Mt Gox Hack850,000 BTC$450,000,000Feb 2014The Guardian
Picostocks Hack6,000 BTC$3,000,000Nov 2013Bitcoinexchangeguide
BIPS Hack1,295 BTC$650,000Nov 2013The Guardian
Inputs.io Hack4,100 BTC$1,200,000Oct 2013The Guardian
Vircurex1,454 BTC$160,000May 2013Coindesk
Bitcointalk
Bitmarket.eu
(related to bitcoinica hack in May 2012)
20,000 BTC$260,000Dec 2012Newsbtc
Bitfloor Theft24,000 BTC$250,000Sept 2012Arstechnica
BitFloor Hack24,000 BTC$250,000Sept 2012Coindesk
Bitcoin Savings & Trust265,000 BTC$2,800,000Aug 2012The Verge
Arstechnica
Bitcoinica 340,000 BTC$305,200July 2012Bitcointalk
Bitcoinica 218,000 BTC$91,000May 2012Bitcoin
Linode Hack46,700 BTC$228,000March 2012Arstechnica
Bitcoin711,000 BTC$50,000Oct 2011Bitcointalk
MyBitCoin Theft154,406 BTC$2,000,000Aug 2011Observer
allinvain wallet theft25,000 BTC$500,000June 2011Bitcointalk

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