Over one billion pounds worth of cryptocurrency was stolen in the year to July or roughly 60%more than the same period a year ago.
According to data from blockchain platform Chainalysis, a record of £1.6bn was stolen as organised criminals and states exploited weak spots in decentralised finance.
In comparison, overall criminal activity online fell 15%, while online scam revenue was down 65%.
Since the start of August alone, more than hundreds of millions of dollars have been stolen from digital wallets, with £150mln stolen from crypto project Nomad Bridge while a further £6mln was taken from 8,000 wallets held with Solana.
“Hacking on the other hand is going crazy — this has to do with all the vulnerabilities associated with DeFi, and the fact that we have these really sophisticated nation-state actors like North Korea realising they can make billions of dollars looking for badly written protocols to exploit,” said Kim Grauer, director of research at Chanalysis.