Crypto hack losses fall ~60% in December to $76M as address-poisoning and multisig breaches drive risk
PeckShield data shows crypto hack losses fell about 60% in December to ~$76 million, down from $194 million in November. The firm tracked roughly 26 major exploits — fewer dollars were lost rather than fewer attacks. The largest single incident (~$50M) was an address‑poisoning scam that tricked users into sending funds to a lookalike address. Other major losses included a $27.3M multisig wallet drain tied to a private‑key leak, ~ $8.5M from a Trust Wallet exploit (browser‑extension weakness), ~$22M at babur.sol, and ~$3.9M related to Flow protocol issues. PeckShield attributes the monthly drop mainly to faster detection, improved monitoring and filters, and quicker responses from exchanges and wallets, while warning attackers remain adaptive and address‑poisoning scams persist. For traders, the report signals modestly improved security confidence but continued vulnerability in key vectors — private keys, multisigs and address lookalikes — so ongoing on‑chain monitoring, strict risk controls and cautious handling of wallet/browser integrations remain essential.
Neutral
The news is neutral for market prices of the affected tokens overall. The sharp month‑on‑month drop in total dollar losses (~60%) is positive for market confidence, reflecting improved detection, monitoring and faster exchange/wallet responses. However the losses remain concentrated in a few large incidents (address‑poisoning, multisig private‑key leak, wallet/browser vulnerabilities), which highlights persistent attack vectors and ongoing tail risk. Short term: affected projects or tokens tied to a specific exploit (eg. a compromised multisig wallet or a protocol exploited) may see temporary price pressure and increased volatility as funds are drained or trust is tested. Broader market impact: limited — the reduction in aggregate losses should ease systemic fear, but continued high‑profile scams can trigger intermittent sell pressure and heightened risk premia for projects with weak custody or UI vulnerabilities. For traders, the takeaways are to watch on‑chain alerts, avoid address copy/paste complacency, tighten custody and multisig practices, and be cautious around tokens tied to recent incidents, where short‑term bearish moves are possible while long‑term fundamentals depend on fixes and audits.