Crypto Heists Explode in April: One Elderly Victim Loses $330.7 Million!

April's Crypto Losses Skyrocket to $364 Million

Hold onto your hats, crypto fans! April just blew the roof off with a staggering $364 million in losses from hacks, scams, and all sorts of digital skullduggery. That's a mind-blowing 1,163% jump from March's meager $28.8 million, according to the blockchain security gurus at CertiK.

One Attack, One Elderly Victim, $330.7 Million Gone

But wait, it gets crazier! This whole mess was mostly because of one single attack that targeted an elderly American, swiping a jaw-dropping 3,520 Bitcoin worth a cool $330.7 million. These cyber crooks used some slick social engineering tricks to raid the victim's wallet, making it the fifth-biggest crypto heist ever recorded.

Even Without the Big Hit, Losses Were Still Up

Now, even if you take that massive hit out of the equation, April's losses still hit $34 million, up 21% from the month before. CertiK's sleuths pointed to phishing, access control exploits, social engineering, and price manipulation as the main ways these thieves are getting into your pockets.

But Wait, There's Some Good News: Millions Recovered!

Don't despair just yet! Some of the stolen loot was clawed back thanks to the efforts of affected protocols and those heroic white hat hackers. CertiK says about $18.2 million got recovered in April. KiloEx, for example, had $7.5 million snatched, but they got it all back in just four days!

More Recovery Stories: ZKsync and Loopscale

And there's more! ZKsync Association managed to get back $5 million in stolen tokens after a breach in their airdrop contract. The attacker played ball and returned everything in exchange for a 10% bounty. DeFi protocol Loopscale also got lucky, reclaiming $5.8 million after negotiating with the attacker, who settled for a 10% whitehat bounty and a promise of no legal action.

April's Wild, But February Was Even Crazier

April was wild, no doubt, but February still holds the crown for the year's most expensive month for crypto losses. That month saw a whopping $1.53 billion vanish, mostly thanks to a $1.46 billion exploit on the crypto exchange Bybit, and a $49.5 million hit on stablecoin issuer Infini.