first-half-of-the-2024-reportEN.pdf (9 MB)

SlowMist’s mid-year blockchain security and AML review reports 223 blockchain security incidents in the first half of 2024 with estimated losses of $1.43 billion, a major increase over the same period in 2023. The excerpt identifies Ethereum as the ecosystem with the highest losses, DeFi as the most frequently attacked project category, and trading platforms as a major loss category driven by the $305 million DMM Bitcoin theft. It details common theft techniques including address poisoning, where attackers generate lookalike wallet addresses and contaminate transaction histories with small transfers so victims copy the wrong address. The supplied excerpt does not attribute the incidents to North Korea, Lazarus, or another DPRK-linked actor, so it should be treated as blockchain threat and AML context rather than DPRK-specific evidence.