REVIEW article
Front. Blockchain
Sec. Blockchain Security and Privacy
This article is part of the Research TopicSecure Convergence of Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence: Innovations, Threats, and Future SafeguardsView all articles
Cybersecurity Crimes in Cryptocurrency Exchanges (2009–2024) and Emerging Quantum Threats: The Largest Unified Dataset of CEX and DEX Incidents
Provisionally accepted
- School of Computer Science and Engineering, VIT, Vellore, India
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Cryptocurrency exchanges are integral to the digital asset economy; however, their rapid growth has been accompanied by recurrent high-impact cyberattacks that erode trust and inflict substantial losses. Guided by the PRISMA-ScR framework, this review systematically screened peer-reviewed and industry sources to construct a validated dataset of 220 major incidents (2009–2024) across centralized (CEX) and decentralized (DEX) exchanges. We classify attack vectors, analyze repeated high-impact patterns, and identify systemic vulnerabilities spanning cryptographic mechanisms and exchange infrastructure. Across CEX platforms, four of ten identified attack types accounted for 62 of the 80 incidents and approximately $1.764 billion in losses (42.1% of the $4.191 billion CEX total). Across DEX platforms, five of eighteen attack types were responsible for 120 of 140 incidents, totaling $3.755 billion (87.3% of the $4.303 billion DEX total). The overall losses sum to $8.494 billion across 220 incidents (80 CEX; 140 DEX). Repeated vectors comprised 182/220 incidents and $5.519 billion (65.0%) of losses, dominated by wallet/key compromise (78 incidents; $2.394 billion) and DEX system/server/protocol exploits (56 incidents; $1.939 billion); these two classes account for 134/182 repeated incidents (79.1%) and $4.333 billion (78.5%) of repeated losses. We examine the susceptibility of cryptographic defenses to emerging quantum adversaries and assess the exchange readiness for post-quantum threats. This study is the first to systematically compile and quantitatively analyze cybercrime incidents affecting both centralized and decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges in a unified dataset (Supplementary Tables S1 and S2), enabling unprecedented comparability of systemic risks with actionable insights for cybersecurity researchers,regulators, and exchange operators seeking quantum-safe infrastructure evolution.
Keywords: Cryptocurrency exchanges, cybersecurity incidents, Centralized vs Decentralized Exchanges, wallet/key compromise, system/server exploit, Smart contracts, PRISMA-ScR, Post-Quantum Cryptography
Received: 26 Sep 2025; Accepted: 10 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 S P and Akinlemi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Meenakshi S P, spmeenakshi@vit.ac.in
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