💥 “If blockchains are so secure, why are there so many hacks?”
A fair question — especially after the recent $CETUS exploit on Sui. So let’s break it down.
Most of what you hear aren’t blockchain hacks — they’re app-level issues. Here are some examples:
🔹 Ethereum (June 2016)
The DAO got exploited via a smart contract bug (reentrancy).
$150M gone.
Led to a huge debate and the ETH/ETC hard fork.
🔹 Sui (May 2025)
Cetus Protocol was hit — $200M–$260M drained from a liquidity pool.
$162M got frozen, rest moved to Ethereum.
🔹 Binance Smart Chain (Oct 2022)
PancakeBunny and Venus lost ~$60M from oracle + contract errors.
Sparked concerns over overall security quality of BSC at the time.
🔹 Solana (Aug 2022)
Slope Wallet users lost $9M; staking bug added another $5M.
Layer 1 stayed intact, but users panicked.
🔹 Avalanche (Dec 2021)
Platypus Finance DeFi app got exploited for $8.5M.
Not Avalanche's fault — core chain remained secure.
🔹 Polygon (Aug 2021)
$600M yanked from PolyNetwork via a bridge flaw.
Again, not a Polygon issue — bridges are often the weak spot.
🔹 Tezos (Sep 2020)
ICP staking pool glitch — $20M lost.
Core protocol untouched.
🔹 Cardano (Dec 2022)
MuesliSwap DEX got hacked for $3M.
Just a Layer 2 app, not the base chain.
🔹 NEAR (Aug 2021)
Ref Finance exploited for ~$3M via smart contract bug.
NEAR chain stayed secure. Devs responded fast with asset recovery and a Frozen List.
🚨 The Truth:
These aren’t Layer 1 failures — they’re:
DApps (like DAO or MuesliSwap)
AMMs/DEXs (like Cetus or Platypus)
Bridges (like the Poly hack)
Wallets (like Slope Wallet)
Staking infrastructure issues
👉 The underlying chains? Mostly untouched. But public trust still takes a hit.
✅ As of now, base chains like Bitcoin, Ethereum Classic, Avalanche, Cardano, and NEAR have never suffered a core protocol exploit.
So yeah — blockchain itself is secure. It’s everything built on top that gets messy.
Stay smart. Don’t just look at the chain — look at the app.
