Scams on the cryptocurrency market have declined in terms of volume by 15% year over year as prices seem to cool off, Chainalysis said in a recent report. The US-based firm calculated that total scam revenue for 2022 reached $1.6 billion, which is lower than in 2021, 2020 and 2019.
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Darknet revenue is also sliding as in July the market got 43% lower than what it had last year in the same period. Analysts noted though that the decline might be due to the shutdown and sanctioning of Hydra, the largest illegal drug marketplace.
And yet, hacking attacks remain the most profitable activity compared to other illegal schemes as cyber criminals stole $1.9 billion worth of cryptocurrency, while in July 2021 their revenue was under $1.2 billion.
Analysts at Chainalysis believe that this surge of profitability might be due to the fact that smart contracts in the decentralized finance (DeFi) area are still vulnerable to hacking, as their open source code can be studied publicly by anyone.
Earlier in August, Chainalysis said that hackers stole around $2 billion this year by attacking cross-chain bridges just 13 times. The New York-based firm noted that this sum accounts for 69% of total funds stolen since the beginning of 2022.
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