Hack history / Monthly reports / 2021-08
Crypto hacks and thefts, August 2021
Thefts are hacks, exploits, phishing, scams and rug pulls, in dollars at the time. A single source for $500M or more waits for a second source before it counts.
Taken
$876.2M
25 thefts
vs the month before
18×
18× ($48.8M)
vs a year earlier
+209%
+209% ($283.9M)
Largest thefts
Poly Network 10 · Improper Access Control$611MLiquid Global 19 · Hot Wallet Key Compromised$91.3MSentinel 21 · Affected by the HitBTC event$40MC.R.E.A.M. Finance exploited again, this time for $25 to $30 million 30 · Hack or exploit$29MBilaxy 29 · Hot Wallet Key Compromised$21.7MPopsicle Finance 03 · Reward Logic Flaw$20.7MCREAM Lending 30 · Reentrancy$18.8MPunk Protocol 10 · Delegatecall Hijack$8.9MDAO Maker Vesting 12 · Improper Access Control$7MLuna Yield 19 · Rug Pull$6.7M
How attackers got in
Smart contract bug 11$678.7M
Keys, accounts and infrastructure 3$153.1M
Other 2$29M
Insiders: rug pulls, frauds, collapses 1$6.7M
Price, oracle and governance 4$6.5M
Phishing and scams 4$2.3M
By chain
Ethereum 9$784.7M
BNB Chain 6$619.8M
Polygon 1$611M
not stated 7$71.3M
Solana 2$6.7M
NEAR 1$3.2M
Acala 1$1.6M
Polkadot 1$430K
By target
DeFi protocol 15$685.2M
Centralized exchange 2$113M
not stated 8$78M
Collapses and frauds, counted apart
2 cases, $2.10B.
Cite this page
SwanBluechip, "Crypto hacks and thefts, August 2021", Crypto hack history, https://swan-hack-tracker.pages.dev/history/m/2021-08/ (data as of 2026-10-31).