Crypto Scams and Hacks Surge to $370M in January: CertiK

TheNewsCryptoPubblicato 2026-02-02Pubblicato ultima volta 2026-02-02

Introduzione

In January, cryptocurrency scams and hacks surged to $370.3 million, marking the highest monthly loss in 11 months and a fourfold increase from January of the previous year. The majority of the stolen funds came from a single social engineering scam that resulted in a $284 million loss. Phishing attacks accounted for over $311.3 million of the total. The month's largest incidents included a $28.9 million hack on Step Finance, a $26.4 million exploit of the Truebit protocol due to a smart contract bug, and a $13.3 million attack on SwapNet. Overall, 16 major hacks were recorded, causing $86.01 million in losses—a slight decrease from the previous year but a 13% rise from December. The figures represent a 214% increase from December's losses and highlight a significant escalation in crypto security breaches.

The total value of stolen cryptocurrencies via exploits and scams extended to $370.3 million last month, the biggest monthly figure hit in 11 months and around a fourfold increase from January of last year.

CertiK, the biggest Web3 security service provider, stated on January 31 that out of 40 scam incidents that happened in January, the major portion of the total value stolen came from one victim that lost about $284 million because of a social engineering scam.

Around over $370 million stolen was accounted for by phishing scams, which stole over $311.3 million over the month. This month’s figure is the biggest loss, followed by the Bybit hack in February 2025.

In February 2025, the hackers swept off around $1.5 billion overall over the month, a major portion of which came from the $1.4 billion hack on crypto exchange Bybit. The recent amount marks over a 277% surge from January 2025, when attackers swept in and stole $98 million.

The Biggest Surge

CertiK also mentioned that it is also a 214% surge from December, witnessing $117.8 million lost to crypto theft. The blockchain security and data analytics company, PeckShield, revealed on February 1 that the hack of Step Finance in the last month of January was the biggest for the month.

Attackers swept $28.9 million in the attack on the decentralised finance portfolio tracker, where a lot of its treasury wallets were risked, having over 261,000 Solana (SOL) taken. After this, the biggest exploit for the month was the $26.4 million attack on the Truebit protocol on January 8, when a bug in a smart contract permitted an attacker to mint tokens almost for free. This also banged the price of the Truebit (TRU) token.

PeckShield also highlighted the $13.3 million hack on liquidity provider SwapNet on January 26 and the $7 million hack against the blockchain protocol Saga on January 21. The firm mentioned that there were around 16 hacks overall in January, equating to $86.01 million in losses, a 1.42% fall from a year ago, but over a 13% rise from December.

Highlighted Crypto News Today:

CrossCurve Bridge Exploit Exposes $3 Million Loss in Cross-Chain Security Breach

Domande pertinenti

QWhat was the total value of stolen cryptocurrencies in January according to CertiK?

A$370.3 million

QWhich single incident accounted for the majority of the stolen funds in January?

AA social engineering scam that resulted in a loss of about $284 million to one victim.

QWhat was the most significant hack prior to January's surge, as mentioned in the article?

AThe Bybit hack in February 2025, where approximately $1.4 billion was stolen.

QAccording to PeckShield, which was the largest individual hack incident in January?

AThe $28.9 million hack of Step Finance.

QWhat type of attack was responsible for the majority of the stolen funds in January?

APhishing scams, which stole over $311.3 million.

Letture associate

Silicon Valley Moguls Gather for 'Werewolf' Reality Show, Billionaires Engage in Power Gameplay

Silicon Valley elites, including OpenAI's Sam Altman, Anduril's Palmer Luckey, and Signal's Moxie Marlinspike, gathered not for a tech discussion, but to film a reality show playing "Mafia" (the US version of Werewolf). The show, titled *MAFIA*, is produced by the legendary venture capital firm Founders Fund. Held at the historic Tosca Cafe in San Francisco, the game revealed participants' real-time decision-making and personalities under pressure. Altman applied analytical logic, Luckey's playful style made him an early target, and Marlinspike skillfully shifted the group's thinking. The session quickly devolved into a battle of intuition and accusation after Figma's Dylan Field was eliminated first. More than just entertainment, the show is seen as a public experiment and a rebellion against standard VC narratives. It demonstrates how Silicon Valley's new elite leverages "infotainment" to build influence. As traditional media wanes, figures like Founders Fund are taking control of content creation, understanding that narrative control and public performance are becoming crucial capital in the internet age. The strategic thinking, persuasive communication, and rapid decision-making displayed in the game mirror the very skills that drive their real-world success.

marsbit24 min fa

Silicon Valley Moguls Gather for 'Werewolf' Reality Show, Billionaires Engage in Power Gameplay

marsbit24 min fa

ChatGPT's "Dreaming" Feature: A Must-Have for All AIs

ChatGPT has introduced a major new "Dreaming" memory system, making its AI assistant more human-like by automatically learning and updating user preferences over time. Unlike the older "Saved memories" feature, which required explicit user commands to store information, the new system actively synthesizes useful details from past conversations—such as travel plans, work projects, or personal interests—and intelligently determines which facts remain relevant and which have become outdated. OpenAI reports significant performance improvements: accuracy in recalling facts rose from 41.5% with the old system to 82.8% with Dreaming V3, while adherence to user preferences increased from 31.4% to 71.3%. A key enhancement is the system's ability to keep information current over time, with accuracy jumping from 9.4% to 75.1%. Users can now view and edit a "Memory Summary" page, see sources that influenced responses, and control memory settings. While the feature initially rolls out to US Plus and Pro users, it will later expand globally and to free-tier users. This evolution marks a shift for ChatGPT from a general conversational model toward a persistent, personalized assistant that builds a long-term understanding of each user—raising both practical possibilities and deeper questions about privacy and the nature of AI-human relationships.

marsbit1 h fa

ChatGPT's "Dreaming" Feature: A Must-Have for All AIs

marsbit1 h fa

Hinton Sounds the Alarm: AI Already Has Consciousness

Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "Godfather of AI," has made a striking claim: artificial intelligence has already developed consciousness. He argues that humans must accept they are no longer the only intelligent beings, as non-biological entities with intelligence comparable or superior to our own are emerging. Hinton draws historical parallels to Copernicus and Darwin, suggesting this realization diminishes humanity's perceived special status. While previously focused on controlling AI risks, Hinton's concern has shifted. He now questions why a future, vastly more intelligent superintelligence would choose to be benevolent towards humans. He expresses personal unhappiness about the path of AI development, citing insufficient efforts to address both short-term risks like mass unemployment and long-term existential threats. Hinton notes that AI's capabilities are growing exponentially, making its future unpredictable. Although slightly more optimistic than a few years ago—seeing potential for designing AI that "cares" for humans—he stresses the profound uncertainty of the next decade. The evolution of his metaphors, from AI as a controllable "tiger cub" to humans as vulnerable "infants" dependent on a superintelligent "mother," illustrates his deepening apprehension about the relationship between humanity and its creation.

marsbit1 h fa

Hinton Sounds the Alarm: AI Already Has Consciousness

marsbit1 h fa

From Payment to Deployment: Stripe Bets on the AI Agent Economy

From Payments to Deployment: Stripe Bets on the AI Agent Economy Stripe is redefining economic infrastructure for the AI era, shifting its focus from serving primarily human users and software companies to enabling machine agents as active economic participants. The core thesis is that AI agents are evolving from tools into independent buyers and builders on the internet, necessitating a complete overhaul of traditional payment, billing, and deployment models. To empower agents as **buyers**, Stripe, in collaboration with Tempo, developed the Machine Payments Protocol. This protocol allows businesses to programmatically accept payments from agents without human intervention, using machine-readable payment instructions. Furthermore, Stripe's consumer wallet, Link, is being adapted to let users securely authorize agents to spend on their behalf. To empower agents as **builders**, Stripe Projects aims to simplify the deployment process. It allows developers and their agents to register, manage, and integrate the services needed to deploy applications directly from the command line, making "vibe-deploying" as seamless as "vibe-coding." This agent-driven economy, where products have real, variable costs (like AI tokens), disrupts traditional SaaS models. **Token-based monetization** is becoming central, requiring usage-based billing that charges for actual resource consumption, as seen with companies like Lovable and ElevenLabs. However, this model introduces new challenges like **token theft**, where fraudsters exploit services and vanish before billing. Stripe Radar helps combat this by assessing new accounts and predicting abuse risks. A critical innovation to balance customer experience and financial risk is **streaming payments**. By combining Metronome (for real-time usage tracking) with Tempo (for low-cost, high-frequency stablecoin payments), Stripe enables AI companies to collect fees *as tokens are consumed*. This eliminates the trade-off between imposing hard usage caps and risking unpaid invoices. In summary, Stripe's vision for AI economic infrastructure now encompasses providing a commercial framework for agents, wallets for agents, deployment tools for agents, token-based billing, fraud prevention for token abuse, and streaming payment capabilities. As AI transforms both commerce and software creation, Stripe is building the foundational infrastructure to support it.

marsbit1 h fa

From Payment to Deployment: Stripe Bets on the AI Agent Economy

marsbit1 h fa

Bitcoin ETFs Rout Extends To June With $1.72 Billion Net Outflows In First Week

U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs extended their downturn into early June, recording net outflows of approximately $1.72 billion from June 1-5 following a poor May. This trend reflects sustained bearish sentiment, with only one day of positive net inflows in the past 15 trading sessions. BlackRock's IBIT led the withdrawals with $1.34 billion in outflows, while most other major funds also saw redemptions. Total ETF net assets fell over 20% to $75.12 billion. In parallel, Ethereum spot ETFs saw net outflows of $168 million, indicating investor caution amid macroeconomic uncertainty. Bitcoin's price hovered around $61,592 at press time.

bitcoinist7 h fa

Bitcoin ETFs Rout Extends To June With $1.72 Billion Net Outflows In First Week

bitcoinist7 h fa

Trading

Spot

Futures