I thought the whole reason behind so-called ‘crypto-currencies’ was that they were safe from hackers!..................
Like electronic ballots were safe
While cryptocurrencies themselves are practically unhackable, the security of a holding of crypto is based on keeping a secret. Systems developed around cryptos can be hacked to learn the secret or to get those systems to transfer crypto to the hackers.
Um no. No software is safe from hacking.
Its kind of like a lock, a varying amount of skill, resources, and time are required to defeat what ever security measures are in place, but it can be done.
The seminal bitcoin whitepaper stated as much :
"The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU power than any cooperating group of attacker nodes"
Nothing is “safe” from hackers if you don’t understand your system at least as well as the hackers do.
Important context for this story:
Be careful to not lump Bitcoin with the cryptocurrency clown show. Bitcoin is the only truly decentralized digital currency, because it came first. The first successful decentralized currency network soaks up the available resources and makes the entry bar prohibitively high for a second decentralized network. So there can be only one, and BTC is it, forever. Everything else is ca-ca coin, comparatively.
Defi is based on ca-ca coin, so ca-ca happens...