Crypto Case Studies
Structured post-mortems of the major exchange collapses, bridge exploits, smart-contract failures, governance attacks, and depegs. Each entry covers the timeline, the mechanism that caused the failure, operational lessons, and primary-source citations. Read them to internalise patterns that have repeated across the industry.
FTX Collapse
November 2022 — second-largest crypto exchange collapses in days; founder convicted of fraud and conspiracy.
Read the post-mortemTerraUSD (UST) & LUNA Collapse
May 2022 — algorithmic stablecoin death-spiral wipes out $40B+ across UST and LUNA in roughly 72 hours.
Read the post-mortemMt. Gox Collapse
February 2014 — at the time the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world goes bankrupt with ~850,000 BTC missing. Recovery proceedings continue a decade later.
Read the post-mortemThe DAO Hack
June 2016 — reentrancy exploit drains $60M from The DAO and triggers Ethereum's contentious hard fork that created ETH and ETC.
Read the post-mortemRonin Bridge Hack
March 2022 — North Korean state-sponsored attackers drain $625M from the Axie Infinity sidechain bridge. Largest crypto theft to date.
Read the post-mortemWormhole Bridge Exploit
February 2022 — $325M drained from Wormhole's Solana–Ethereum bridge via a signature-verification bug. Jump Crypto immediately backstopped the loss.
Read the post-mortemCelsius Network Insolvency
June–July 2022 — crypto lender pauses withdrawals, files Chapter 11; founder Alex Mashinsky later indicted by DOJ.
Read the post-mortemThree Arrows Capital (3AC) Collapse
June–July 2022 — Singapore-based crypto hedge fund defaults on ~$3.5B; ordered into liquidation; founders flee.
Read the post-mortemBlockFi Bankruptcy
November 2022 — crypto lender files Chapter 11 ten days after FTX collapse; cascade culmination of the 2022 lender failures.
Read the post-mortemGenesis Trading Bankruptcy
January 2023 — DCG-subsidiary crypto lender files Chapter 11; Gemini Earn cross-exposure plus 3AC default; eventual $1B+ SEC settlement.
Read the post-mortemQuadrigaCX Collapse
January 2019 — Canadian crypto exchange collapses after founder's death allegedly takes private keys; ~$190M CAD missing.
Read the post-mortemParity Multisig Freeze
November 2017 — accidental kill() on shared library contract freezes ~513,000 ETH across hundreds of Parity multisig wallets; EIP-999 rejected.
Read the post-mortemNomad Bridge Exploit
August 2022 — optimistic-bridge verification bug enables 'free-for-all' looting; ~$190M drained by hundreds of copycat addresses.
Read the post-mortemMultichain Collapse
July 2023 — cross-chain protocol freezes after CEO Zhaojun's arrest in China; $130M+ stuck and unrecoverable; ambiguous insider-exit vs theft.
Read the post-mortemMango Markets Exploit
October 2022 — Avraham Eisenberg manipulates MNGO oracle via flash-loan-funded price moves; ~$117M drained; later convicted of commodities fraud.
Read the post-mortemEuler Finance Exploit
March 2023 — donateToReserves bug + flash loans drain $197M; attacker subsequently returns ~80% via on-chain negotiation.
Read the post-mortemBeanstalk Farms Governance Attack
April 2022 — flash-loan-funded governance takeover passes malicious BIP-18; $182M drained in a single transaction.
Read the post-mortemBitfinex 2016 Hack and 2022 Recovery
August 2016 — 120,000 BTC stolen from Bitfinex multi-sig; February 2022 — DOJ seizes ~94,000 BTC and arrests Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan.
Read the post-mortem