The primary half of 2026 was probably the most energetic six months for crypto exploits on file.
That is in line with a brand new report from Blockaid, which exhibits hackers stole $1.1 billion throughout 212 incidents.
Crypto Hacks High $1.1B in H1 2026
The Blockaid report discovered that 4 main incidents involving KelpDAO, Drift, Resolv, and CoW Swap made up roughly $707 million of the overall losses.
KelpDAO suffered the most important loss, after hackers stole $292 million price of crypto by faking a cross-chain message that siphoned off the protocol’s Ethereum reserves. Drift Protocol, a perpetuals trade constructed on the Solana chain, additionally suffered a equally enormous hit, because it was exploited for $285 million inside 12 minutes.
Blockaid linked each instances to TraderTraitor, a state-sponsored North Korean subset of the bigger Lazarus Group. Humanity Protocol’s $32 million loss was additionally related to the identical attacker cluster, bringing DPRK-linked losses to $609 million, which is about 55% of all funds stolen in the course of the interval.
The tempo of assaults additionally elevated by the 12 months, with month-to-month incidents going from 18 in January to 57 in June. April proved to be probably the most painful month, because the KelpDAO and Drift Protocol hacks worn out a mixed $577 million to push whole losses in that month to $635 million.
Privileged key misuse was the costliest assault kind within the first half of 2026, with losses of roughly $790 million, or near three-quarters of all funds stolen within the interval, mentioned Blockaid. Unbacked mint exploits got here second in worth, led by the $80 million Resolve breach. However the hacks on the code stage brought about probably the most casualties, accounting for practically 4 out of 5 assaults by depend.
Assault Vectors Change as New Threats Emerge
The report named AI brokers as a brand new goal after hackers in Might used a immediate injection assault to idiot Bankr’s AI agent into approving an unauthorized transaction for about $216,000.
Cross-chain bridges additionally took a significant hit, with attackers breaching the verification methods of KelpDAO and Taiko by cast proofs and attestations accepted by the vacation spot chains.
As well as, safety groups confronted newer assault strategies in 2026, with Blockaid figuring out 4 incidents involving EIP-7702 pockets delegation assaults, the place a pockets can hand management to a wise contract. Legacy good contracts additionally proceed to be a typical vulnerability, with information exhibiting round 5 instances in Might and June, together with two involving Aztec Join and one concentrating on Raydium’s AMM V3.
Latest incidents exterior the report interval confirmed the identical stress on crypto infrastructure. As an example, on July 23, AFX Commerce, BSquaredNetwork, and Verus have been hit in separate assaults on the identical day that collectively brought about greater than $35 million in losses. Recall that Verus had already suffered one other exploit about two months earlier, and Blockaid linked each incidents to the identical bridge contract and bug class.
Restoration outcomes different relying on the kind of assault. Per the report, code-related incidents generally allowed groups to freeze funds or negotiate returns, whereas assaults involving stolen keys normally ended with the cash transferring by mixers or cross-chain routes.
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