Opinion by: Orest Gavryliak, chief leader, 1inch labs
Bybit’s violation in February broke the record for the greatest hack in the history of cryptography. More than $ 1.4 billion was stolen by North Korean cybercriminals in the blink of an eye, the daring breakage making head of the head of the whole world.
Now, as Trm Labs reports, $ 2.1 billion in crypto was lost because of attacks in the first half of 2025. It is a sum of exorbitant money, and yet the hacks seem to continue.
Although special attention was paid to these cheeky flights, there was not enough control of how these hackers managed to whiten cryptographic participations. Centralized exchanges (CEX) and Defi protocols have lessons to learn from these devastating incidents – for various reasons.
CEX must make changes
For trading platforms invoked by millions of users worldwide, significant changes must be made to the way transactions are signed. According to a user interface summary is no longer good enough; Instead, it is crucial to manually decode call data. It is only then that leaders can be convinced that funds passing by a cold portfolio will reach their planned destination.
Other cutting-edge solutions include the “intelligent co-signs” which validate the transaction and signatures. This ensures that suspicious requests are automatically rejected, even if all the required approvals are present.
Transactions can now be simulated before the signatures take place, associated with real -time threat intelligence which signals high -risk call data. Make a concerted passage to a multipartite calculation – where private keys are divided into several fragments and never entirely assembled – can prove to be a convincing alternative to intelligent contracts.
In recent crypto hacks, the interfaces were manipulated. The bad actors deceived the executives by accidentally authorizing malicious transactions. Until now, more than 80% of the cryptography on 75 hacks this year has been taken in so -called infrastructure exploits, which, on average, are led with 10 times more than other types of attack.
It is clear that a model is starting to train, and it is unacceptable that CEXs do not adapt in response to this established threat.
Defi must challenge the pirates
The first step is to make prohibitively difficult for hackers to treat exchanges as their own personal piggy bank, with robust guarantees that close attack vectors. In the next stage of the pirate’s journey, when they try to move illicit funds through decentralized platforms, essential improvements must also be made.
The frustration of the CEO of Bybit, Ben Zhou, was palpable when he tried to freeze the large quantities of ethn of his platform in February. Blockchain Analytics has shown that the funds were spread over many portfolios in hundreds of transactions – dividing the $ 1.4 billion into innumerable little flavors. On When the change occurs Podcast, he describe Trying to contact the platforms where the crypto had been moved, but when he received an answer, the funds had been transferred elsewhere.
This is why DEFI protocols must accelerate efforts to prevent hackers from taking advantage of their infrastructure. An intelligence mixture on risks, transactions monitoring, portfolio screening and risk management can all play a role here – without compromising decentralization.
In relation: Crypto seed phrase, hacks front of recording losses in 2025: TRM Labs
Some solutions use 24/7 intelligence in real time, while others also incorporate human intelligence to quickly respond to incidents as they take place. When associated with an advanced and multitasking risk management board suitable for DEFI, this technology can filter interactions and transactions against blocked addresses, allocate portfolios to monitoring areas and apply risks in real time for addresses.
This layer approach makes it possible to detect a malicious activity in a few seconds, allowing security teams to interpret behavioral anomalies, to collaborate with external information providers and to take rapid measures in complex or ambiguous situations where human judgment is essential. Suspicious portfolios and IP connections can be blocked before the funds are lost.
There is nothing wrong with healthy competition between exchanges and Defi protocols. Customers deserve the choice. A hacking against a platform must however be treated as an attack against them all.
Close collaboration is not only an exercise in good public relations; This is an opportunity to form a united front against thieves that endangers the future of this industry. Each hacking of consumer confidence, and if they continue to occur, regulators can be left without choice only to impose restrictions which also penalize users and developers of law respectful of laws.
Self -regulation is the future
By design, DEFI protocols are open to all users and do not supervise, do not manage or “police” as a centralized alternative would. A non-guardian approach means that developers DEFI cannot freeze illicit funds through their platform. Legislators may not fully assess the functioning of DEFI platforms and, therefore, developers are often accused of the activity of others, even if they were not personally responsible for these transactions.
Recent crypto hacks must be used as alarm clock. Responsible developers must come together to create solid governance and security models that follow technological progress. The careful prudent design, diaper defense systems and continuous security journals have the potential to ensure that crypto hacks no longer bother for opportunistic thieves.
The deepest truth is clear. If the crypto fails to self-regulate, it could become one of the most convincing counter-arguments against the free market itself.
Despite its faults, traditional finance (tradfi) works in a clear set of forced rules created by regulators – a form of central planning which acts as a buffer against systemic risk and crime. DEFI, on the other hand, prides itself on eliminating intermediaries and embracing the dynamics of the pure market. The events in progress show that absolute freedom may not be durable without even a thin layer of coordination or guarantees.
The ideal may not be a 100%free market, but 85%, where the remaining 15%serve as a layer of programmable rules designed to maintain security, prevent abuse and promote confidence. Not to reproduce the bureaucracy of Tradfi but to implement automated, transparent and mini-invasive standards for things such as anti-flowage, fraud detection and risk allocation.
Consider it not as a descending control but as railing in terms of the protocol: intelligent and modular layers which allow Defi preserve the opening while ensuring responsibility. These could be open source standards focused on the integrated community directly in protocols, applications and decentralized interfaces – a collective effort to reduce systemic threats without compromising decentralization.
Defi does not need to imitate Tradfi to mature, but freedom without responsibility can invite chaos. The objective is not to restrict innovation, but to do so to the proof of the future thanks to shared standards, ethical design and resilience.
Yes, it will take time. Yes, it will take an investment. And yes, this will require experimentation and some false starts. But in the long term, dividends will be enormous.
Opinion of: Orest Gavryliak, chief executive, 1Inch Labs.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and must not be considered as legal or investment advice. The points of view, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are the only of the author and do not reflect or do not necessarily represent the opinions and opinions of Cointellegraph.
