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ccording to blockchain security firm PeckShield, the amount of money netted from decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks in the first four months of 2022, $1.57 billion, has already surpassed the amount netted in all of 2021, $1.55 billion. Chainalysis found a similar trend, with the hacker haul in the first three months of 2022 exceeding a record set in the third quarter of 2021. The biggest hacks were Axie Infinity's Ronin bridge exploit ($650 million), the Wormhole network exploit ($320 million) and the Beanstalk Farms governance attack ($180 million). The biggest hacks of 2022 were carried out by attackers spotting vulnerabilities in smart contracts and protocols, especially in cross-chain bridges and flash loan protocols. According to Chainalysis, because blockchain code is typically public, hackers can view it easily to spot vulnerabilities and manipulate the protocol to exploit it.

The U.K. Treasury is canceling its plans to release a government-backed non-fungible token (NFT). The Royal Mint was tasked with releasing the token by the summer of 2022 but faced delays. The U.K.'s economic secretary Andrew Griffith said that the plans were not moving forward "at this time" but that the proposal would remain under review. Chair of the Treasury Select Committee Harriet Baldwin said that the government's chief financial minister would be asked if issuing an NFT "remains the policy of his department."