Criteria for Case Inclusion

Notability

• A case must be referenced from at least two locations. A single comment is not sufficient. Two comments, or a comment and a blockchain transaction, or a thread with multiple follow up comments, are valid for consideration.
• Due to the nature of cryptocurrency, primary sources like Reddit, Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Medium, or other social media are permitted. Other common sources which can be used are the Internet Archive, news articles from publications like CoinTelegraph, Decrypt, Vice, or third party aggregators of case information like Rekt. More well known cases will likely have a variety of mainstream and official sources, which should be given precedence.
• The case must involve one of the following:
  • More than $1,500 USD lost at the time of the event, in the case of a hack, theft, fraud, or lost key. If the loss is in fungible crypto-assets, this is calculated using the closing price on CoinMarketCap at the day of the exploit. If CoinMarketCap doesn't list the price of the assets, then an alternative source like CoinGecko or Nomics can be used. Best effort should be made to assess the accurate value of the loss including all assets lost.
  • More than $9,500 USD worth of funds placed at risk of loss, were the exploit not found and resolved through a white hacking effort. Cases in this category must be such that the loss would have occurred by default. (ie. Someone in a time machine could have taken the funds without depending on operator incompetence.)
  • Private sensitive information on more than 50 individuals being compromised. This includes full legal names, home address, email address and association with a cryptocurrency service, or phone number and association with a cryptocurrency service.
• Credibility is generally given to the event as having occurred versus not having occurred, except in the following cases:
  • Events which are accompanied with advertisement for questionable cryptocurrency recovery services. In this case, independent third party sources are required for the even to be included.
• If an event is considered controversial as to whether it occurred or not, this should be noted in the article.

Relevance

• The case must involve crypto-assets, or purport to involve crypto-assets. For cases which involve a mix of real-world assets and crypto-assets, real-world assets are generally not included unless they form liquidity on a trading platform.
• The specific time (at least to the week) of the event must be discernible. The relevant time to use is as follows:
  • For hacking or rug pull events, the timestamp of the first blockchain transaction that removes funds from the individual or service facing the loss. If no blockchain transactions can be found, then the timestamp of the very first public report.
  • Ponzi events must have concluded before they can be covered. For ponzi events, in this order:
    • The timestamp of a public declaration of bankruptcy or announcement that the platform is shutting down.
    • If there was no such announcement, the time at which the platform ceased to honour withdrawals. This is the time of last withdrawal, not counting withdrawals by operators of the scheme.
    • If information about withdrawals cannot be obtained, or no withdrawals were ever allowed, the timestamp of the first public report that a participant is unable to withdraw their funds.
  • For lost funds, the time at which the individual or organization first publicly reports the funds inaccessible.
  • For privacy breaches, the date at which the information was first accessed by an unintended party. If the circumstances of the access have not been publicly revealed, then the time of the first announcement.