Blockchain: Is it a hoax?  103

• Terra blockchain, which includes TerraUSD (UST) and Luna crashed

on 9 May 2022. On 7 May, an algorithm stablecoin called TerraUSD

(UST), which is supposed to maintain a USD 1 peg, started to go down

in value and fell to 35 cents on 9 May. Terra blockchain companion

token called Luna also fell from $80 to few cents by 12 May 2022.

This has been one of the biggest disasters in the crypto world so far.

About $45 billion were wiped out in just a matter of days.

• Mt Gox attack of 2014 is the most infamous cryptocurrency exchange

incident. Hackers stole 850,000 Bitcoins which were never recovered.

• Binance crypto exchange has been hacked multiple times and again

costing traders and investors tens of millions of dollars.

• In March 2014, the Flexicon crypto exchange was hacked and hackers

took away 896 Bitcoins.

• Poloniex exchange was shut down after losing 12% of its total Bitcoin

to hackers.

• In February 2020, an Italian cryptocurrency exchange called Altsbit

was hacked. They announced that almost all funds were stolen –

6,920 BTC, 23,210 ETH and other cryptocurrencies.

• In November 2019, a South Korean exchange Upbit suffered a massive

breach when hackers stole 342,000 ETH (worth $51 million at the

time of the hack).

• In November 2019, Vietnam-based cryptocurrency exchange called

VinDAX was hacked, and $500,000 worth of cryptocurrency was stolen.

• In July 2019, a Japanese exchange Bitpoint was hacked due to a security

breach. Hackers made off with over $30 million worth of cryptocur-

rency at the time of the hack. 1,225 BTC, 169 ETH, 1,985 BCH, 5,108

LTC, and 28 million XRP were stolen. Bitpoint was able to recover

about $2.3 million of the stolen crypto from overseas exchanges.

• In June 2019, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitrue

experienced a major hack to its hot wallet. Cryptocurrency worth $5

million was stolen from about 90 Bitrue users.

• In June 2019, a UK and Slovenia-based cryptocurrency exchange

called GateHuB suffered from a large hack where hackers made off

with $10 million worth of Ripple (23,200,000 XRP). It appears hack-

ers managed to access encrypted secret keys; however, it is still unclear

as to how exactly the hackers gained access to users’ funds.

• In May 2019, hackers managed to use a phishing scam and malware

to hack into Binance and ran off with $40 million worth of Bitcoin

(about 7,000 BTC).

• In March 2019, a Singapore-based crypto exchange DragonEx suf-

fered an attack in which hackers made off with $7 million worth

of cryptocurrency. The North Korean hacking group Lazarus was

responsible. It appears that hackers created a legitimate-looking fake

company and convinced DragonEx employees to download malware

onto their computers through Telegram and LinkedIn messages.