New findings from cybersecurity firm SlowMist indicate that the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem has suffered substantial losses totaling $400 million due to exploits so far this year, amid a 50% surge in crypto hacking incidents.

According to SlowMist’s mid-year report for 2024, Ethereum, the second-largest digital asset by market cap, incurred the highest losses from exploits within its ecosystem. Following Ethereum, layer-2 scaling solutions Arbitrum (ARB) and Blast also experienced significant losses, amounting to $72.46 million and $70 million, respectively.

In addition, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) recorded the highest number of security incidents at 57, resulting in losses of approximately $32.12 million.

SlowMist’s research reveals that the digital assets industry encountered a total of 223 security incidents in the first half of 2024, leading to combined losses of $1.43 billion. This marks a more than 50% increase from the $920 million lost in the same period of 2023.

The report highlights decentralized finance (DeFi) as the most targeted sector in crypto, accounting for nearly 71% of all security incidents in the first half of 2024. Specifically, there were 158 DeFi security breaches during this period, amounting to losses of $659 million. This represents a 37.29% year-on-year increase compared to losses of approximately $480 million from 111 incidents in the first half of 2023.

SlowMist identifies contract vulnerabilities and exit scams as the top causes of exploits, contributing to 56 and 50 incidents, respectively.

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