Cryptoverse: Blockchain bridges fall into troubled waters

Another day, another hack – and another blockchain bridge burned.

When thieves stole an estimated $190 million from U.S. crypto firm Nomad last week, it was the seventh hack of 2022 to target an increasingly important cog in the crypto machine: Blockchain bridges – strings of code that help move crypto coins between different applications.

So far this year, hackers have stolen crypto worth some $1.2 billion from bridges, data from London-based blockchain analysis firm Elliptic shows, already more than double last year’s total.

This is a war where the cybersecurity firm or the project can’t be a winner, said Ronghui Hu, a professor of computer science at Columbia University in New York and co-founder of cybersecurity firm CertiK.

We have to protect so many projects. For them (hackers) when they look at one project and there’s no bugs, they can simply move on to the next one, until they find a one weak point.

At present, most digital tokens run on their own unique blockchain, essentially a public digital ledger that records crypto transactions. That risks projects using these coins becoming siloed, reducing their prospects for wide use.