CertiK · Wall Street · CoinDesk
DefiLlama data recently found more than $1.1 billion had been dropped to DeFi hacks in a year
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Persistent operational failure is the primary symptom of what Gu calls an “unfair game” in favor of malicious actors, because they possess infinite resources.
Key facts
- A single protocol attacker can easily spend $10,000 to $20,000 worth of computer tokens to keep advanced engines running continuous vulnerability scans against a protocol for days or weeks on end
- Drift Protocol and Kelp Dao were hacked by North Korean cybercriminals in April in two exploits that drained nearly $600 million from the two lending crypto pools
- DefiLlama data recently showed more than $1.1 billion had been lost to DeFi hacks in a year, exposing how vulnerabilities in cross-chain infrastructure can quickly spill into the broader ecosystem
- Traditional financial institutions are preparing to move trillions of dollars of assets onchain, but the risk of hacks and exploits is putting them off, according to blockchain security firm CertiK's
Summary
Traditional financial institutions are interested in moving trillions of dollars of assets onchain over the next decade but are deterred by pervasive security risks. CertiK CEO Ronghui Gu says near-daily hacks—many accelerated by AI and targeting smart contracts, oracles and cross-chain bridges—are a major barrier to large-scale institutional adoption. Recent exploits, including a $1.46 billion Bybit hack and hundreds of millions drained from Drift Protocol and Kelp Dao, underscore how well-funded attackers outspend constrained defenders and expose systemic vulnerabilities in DeFi. Traditional financial institutions are preparing to move trillions of dollars of assets onchain, but the risk of hacks and exploits is putting them off, according to blockchain security firm CertiK's CEO Ronghui Gu. "Right now, more and more institutions are trying to move assets onchain," Gu told CoinDesk in an interview.