Cryptocurrency Losses Owing to Theft: Already Over 1 Billion USD in 2018

Not yet four months into the year, already cryptocurrency losses due to theft in the global market are estimated to total over 1.3 billion U.S. dollars. That’s an average of approximately $23 million a day.

The number comes from tallying losses stemming from either direct theft or fraudulent Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).

At least twenty-two large fraudulent schemes involving digital financial assets and virtual currencies have been committed worldwide.

In the month of January alone, more than $420 million was illicity withdrawn from the CoinCheck exchange in the form of NEM coins. The incident is described as history’s largest cryptocurrency theft to date.

In February, more than $150 million worth of Nano disappeared from the BitGrail exchange based in Italy.

Notably, most of the thefts involved not the pioneering Bitcoin, but rather so-called alt coins.