Crypto Hack Incidents Reach Record Levels in First Half of 2026, Report Finds

Crypto projects lost more than $1 billion to hacking attacks during the first half of 2026, with the number of verified security breaches reaching an all-time high, according to blockchain security firm Blockaid.

Record Number of Incidents

Blockaid described the first six months of 2026 as the most-hacked half-year on record based on incident count, though total dollar losses stayed below last year’s figure, which was pushed higher by the massive $1.5 billion Bybit breach. The firm noted it verified more exploits in this single half-year than throughout all of 2025 combined.

North Korea-Linked Hackers Lead Losses

Hackers connected to North Korea accounted for the largest portion of stolen funds, with roughly $600 million tied to their activity, including major breaches at Drift and KelpDAO. Blockaid said these attacks typically begin with social engineering through professional networking platforms before compromising multisig wallet signers, a pattern expected to continue.

Differing Estimates and Chain-Level Impact

Other firms reported somewhat different totals, with Immunefi citing about $972 million lost across 207 incidents, and Quill Audits reporting $935.3 million across 87 DeFi hacks. Despite the high incident count, losses remain far below the 2022 peak. By network, Ethereum and Solana suffered the heaviest losses, at $332 million and $326 million respectively, with Ethereum targeted through high-value protocol exploits and Solana attacks focusing more on signer infrastructure.

Looking forward, Blockaid predicts artificial intelligence-related exploits will increase, pointing to a recent $216,000 incident as an early example of this emerging threat category.