The Archive
All catalogued events
Every structured record CryptoMortem has published, ordered from most recent. 70 total.
Poly Network Whitehat Exploit — August 2021
A cross-chain bridge exploit drained $611 million across Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Polygon — the largest crypto theft to that date — and was returned in full by an anonymous attacker who styled themselves "Mr. White Hat".
Funds affected$611.0MKuCoin Hot-Wallet Hack — September 2020
Attackers drained $281M from KuCoin hot wallets across BTC, ETH, ERC-20 and stablecoin balances. Project teams froze and blacklisted stolen tokens; approximately 84% of value was eventually recovered.
Funds affected$281.0MPlusToken Ponzi — June 2019
A Chinese-origin Ponzi scheme that operated across China, Korea and Southeast Asia raised an estimated $2-3 billion in crypto before its founders were arrested in 2019. Subsequent Chinese government sales of seized BTC weighed on markets through 2020.
Funds affected$2.50BQuadrigaCX Collapse — January 2019
Canada's largest crypto exchange collapsed after its 30-year-old founder Gerald Cotten was pronounced dead in India in December 2018, leaving sole access to ~$190M in customer funds. Forensic investigation later concluded the exchange had been a Ponzi scheme.
Funds affected$190.0MBitGrail NANO Hack — February 2018
The Italian exchange disclosed approximately $170M in losses of NANO tokens. Founder Francesco Firano was later found liable by Italian courts and BitGrail entered bankruptcy proceedings.
Funds affected$170.0MCoincheck NEM Hack — January 2018
The Tokyo exchange lost $530M in NEM tokens from a hot wallet — the largest crypto theft on record at the time. Customers were reimbursed in JPY at recovery prices.
Funds affected$530.0MParity Multi-Sig Wallet Freeze — November 2017
A user calling himself 'devops199' invoked a library function that turned a critical Parity contract into a self-destructed shell, freezing approximately $300M worth of ETH across 587 wallets — permanently inaccessible.
Funds affected$300.0MBitfinex Hack — August 2016
Attackers extracted 119,756 BTC from Bitfinex segregated hot wallets, worth $72M at the time. In February 2022 the US government seized $4.7B of the proceeds and arrested the two-person laundering operation.
Funds affected$72.0MThe DAO Hack — June 2016
A recursive-call exploit drained 3.6 million ETH from the largest decentralised organisation on Ethereum, triggering a contentious hard fork that split the chain into ETH and ETC.
Funds affected$50.0MMt. Gox Collapse — February 2014
The exchange handling 70 percent of global Bitcoin trading suspended withdrawals, filed for bankruptcy, and disclosed the loss of 850,000 BTC — a recovery that is still being distributed to creditors a decade later.
Funds affected$450.0M