A recent report released by De.Fi Security, a full-stack web3 security services provider, has revealed that the first quarter of 2023 has seen a staggering loss of $452 million in the cryptocurrency market. 

Out of the $452m lost in Q1, a total of $215m was lost in just the first 20 days of March, underscoring the rapid pace at which scammers have been operating in recent weeks.

During Q1 of this year, there was a recovery of $130 million, resulting in a recovery rate of 28.7%. This is in contrast to last year, where $520 million was recovered, indicating that 40% of the funds were recovered in the same month.

According to the report, the Euler Finance and Bonq DAO exploits were responsible for the majority of the losses, with $196 million and $120 million, respectively. Despite Binance experiencing 18 incidents as opposed to Ethereum's ten, the latter suffered the highest losses. The CoinDeal scheme came in third place, with losses amounting to $45 million, while the Monkey Drainer phishing scammers ranked fourth with losses of $16.5 million.

BNB Smart Chain continues to be a preferred choice for crypto criminals, with a significant 18 cases reported in the first quarter of the year. This number is almost double that of its closest peers, with 10 cases reported on ETH and 7 on Arbitrum.

Smart contract exploits were the most commonly employed method by criminals, with a total of 17 instances reported. The rugpull and flashloan attacks followed closely, with 8 and 6 cases, respectively. Notably, the flashloan attack was responsible for the majority of the losses in March.

When it comes to the amount lost, Lending and Borrowing protocols took the lead. However, this was largely due to a few high-profile incidents, namely Euler Finance and BonqDAO.