DeFi 2020 hacks amount to over $100M+, Is DeFi Definitely Losing it?

DeFi – decentralized finance came with a bang taking the industry by storm. While the concept of DeFi has long been existing, it recently became the buzz of the industry in 2020. All through the year till this day, the industry has experienced significant advancement in this relatively new field of the cryptocurrency industry.

The promises of DeFi are as usual in the cryptocurrency industry, revolutionary, yet this promise and hope which it brings has been met with resistance from actors that has tried to undermine the industry growth in this direction. In this article we are going to be looking at the hacks in the world of DeFi.

The attacks on DeFi in the year began in the second month. DeFi project bZx was attacked and drained of $0.3 million on the 14th of February. Since that incident till date, the project has been attacked at two other times with the hacker withdrawing $0.6 million and $8 million respectively on the 18th of February and 14th of September respectively, though the hacker returned the $8 million in the last attack.

In the month of March, on the 12th, Maker was attacked and hacked of $8.3 million dollars. That was the last in that quarter. The next hack would take place just over a month later. Uniswap was targeted and $0.3 million was taken out. Next was dForce which occurred on the 19th of April, just a day after the attack on Uniswap.

The attackers were able to take out $25 million though this money was returned to the protocol. For the second quarter of the year, Balancer would close the chapter of DeFi attacks. It was drained of $0.5 million.

Eminence Finance came to be at latest target at the end of the third quarter of the year after bZx had opened the stage though the $8 million taken from it was returned. The attackers took out of Eminence Finance $15 million but returned $8 million to the protocol. 

In the last quarter of the year which is still ongoing has recorded more attacks and hacks of DeFi projects. The first Harvest Finance which was exploited for $33.8 million on 26th of October. Next was on the 2nd of November, Axion which was drained of $0.6 million. Akropolis and Value came at the same week with just two days apart.

While the former was drained of $2 million, the later saw a return of $2 million after the attackers had drained the project of $7.4 million. The latest on the ring of DeFi hacks are Cheesebank and Origin Dollar which were attacked and drained of $3.3 million and $7 million respectively.

A common factor in these attacks is the use of flashloans. At this time, these are threatening the stability and growth of the industry in the field of Decentralized Finance, however, it may not be the end.

This is just me saying, you have your own opinion. But one thing that remains relevant to either opinions is the fact that over over 100 million has been drained from DeFi projects though about $45 million has been returned.

What do you think? Please share your comments below.