Did BNB Chain overcome its security challenges in Q3?

• Implementing the Plato and Hertz hard forks helped mitigate the risk of attacks on the BNB Chain.
• A total of 126 incidents occurred, with over $43 million lost.

Many things can be said about the crypto sector. But one thing that people cannot deny is the fact that the evolution of the ecosystem has given rise to unimaginable opportunities for newbies and experienced participants alike.

Amid the pros, there is also no denying that the industry has bad eggs that have made it their mission to dilute the good work of other players. So, it is almost impossible not to experience scams, hacks, and rug pulls here and there.

That leads us to the third quarter (Q3) report, in which we assess BNB Chain’s security performance.

But before diving into that, let’s give a quick breakdown of what a rug pull is. A rug pull happens when a fraudulent developer hypes a cryptocurrency project, attracts investment, and then disappears with the funds later on.

Such events have been one of the reasons blocking the adoption rate of the crypto ecosystem. Because of this, it is important to evaluate what different chains are doing to reduce these recurring incidents. 

Thanks to Hertz and Plato

As mentioned earlier, this article will focus on the BNB Smart Chain (BSC). The BNB Chain is the largest smart contract blockchain in terms of transaction volume and active users. This is because the chain is compatible with several protocols that want to build smart contract applications.

According to the Q3 security report by blockchain firms AvengerDAO and HashDit, the loss of funds via the BNB has significantly reduced when compared with the figures in 2022. AMBCrypto’s evaluation of the report revealed that there was notable improvement between Q2 and Q3 2023.

Source: AvengerDAO and HashDit

Details from the data above showed that fiat losses in Q2 were as high as $69.56 million. In Q3, the value fell to $43.57 million. One of the reasons the losses reduced was because of some things put in place by the protocol.

For instance, in August, the BNB Chain went under two hard forks, namely the Plato and Hertz upgrade. A hard fork is a change in the protocol of a blockchain bound by a software update.

Both Hertz and Plato were implemented to reduce the possibility of malicious attacks and increase BNB Chain’s compatibility with other Ethereum [ETH] Virtual Machines.

As a result, there was a 75% drop in scams recorded on the chain. Also, the number of hacks decreased by 43%, with BNB Chain saying:

“This can be attributed to the fact that Web3 Security companies and on-chain sleuths are monitoring transactions ever so closely. Hence, hackers are deterred from being blackhat as they might be traced to their real identity.”

Still top Year-To-Date

When also compared with other chains, the report found that BNB Chain performed excellently. Take for example, out of all the chains, Ethereum and Tron [TRX] reported a combined 70% of all scam incidents.

BNB Chain, on the other hand, had 30% fewer incidents than Ethereum in the quarter. However, throughout the year till press time, the BNB Smart Chain accounted for the highest number of cases.

Source: AvengerDAO and HashDit

According to the report, most of the Q3 losses incurred on the chain happened in September. This was followed by July, then lastly, August. In total, there were 126 incidents, of which 64.20% were scams and 35.71% were hacks.

MEV-related projects were the most attacked on the chain, followed by GameFi and Gambling projects. The report also took note of the top 10 hacks and scams that happened there. Some of these include a $6.2 million loss on CoinEx.

Source: AvengerDAO and HashDit

Realistic or not, here’s BNB’s market cap in ETH’s terms

Another major one was the $17.8 million loss on Stake.com. Stake.com is a crypto-gambling protocol offering users the ability to bet across a variety of games. 

Although there were others, the BNB Chain Core Development Team said it was working hard to ensure that the reduction in hacks and scams continues. Speaking to AMBCrypto, the team agreed with the report, saying:

“Hashdit and AvengerDAO committees are at the forefront of crypto security and have seen a steady increase in users and integration with major ecosystem players. They are contributing greatly to the Web3 ecosystem and crypto community with these reports, empowering users and developers with essential security knowledge to make informed decisions.”