A record number of crypto attacks were recorded despite lower overall losses.
Bridge attacks emerged as the leading source of losses during Q2
Photo Credit: Unsplash/lonely blue
The second quarter of 2026 is already the most hacked quarter on record in terms of the number of attacks, with 83 hacks of crypto protocols, per analysis from market insights provider Unfolded based on data from DefiLlama. Nonetheless, the $755.3 million (roughly Rs. 7,153 crore) worth of losses reported this quarter so far are way below the $3.56 billion (roughly Rs. 33,720 crore) lost in the fourth quarter of 2020, which is the most expensive quarter for crypto heists to date. KelpDAO's $293 million (roughly Rs. 2,774 crore) hack and Drift Protocol's $280 million (roughly Rs. 2,652 crore) exploit were the largest incidents of the quarter.
The numbers indicate an increase in hacking attacks despite the overall losses not surpassing their previous all-time highs. An increasing number of attacks combined with reduced aggregate losses could mean that there is less value to be exploited by the attackers, said Dmytro Tarasiuk, the product director at CORE3, a risk intelligence platform, and CER.live, a crypto security rating platform. According to Tarasiuk, the total amount of value held within the DeFi system has dropped from $164 billion (roughly Rs. 15,53,408 crore) before the October 10 liquidation event to $73 billion (roughly Rs. 6,91,456 crore) as of now.
Q2 2026 is already the most-hacked quarter on record, with ~70 hacks, 2X the record.
But the total amount hacked ($746M) is a fraction of the previous peaks. Rather than a few giga exploits, it's been a constant stream of smaller attacks pic.twitter.com/wQjaIRlegJ
Exploits on bridges were the most common form of attack in Q2 2026, which saw $351 million (roughly Rs. 3,325 crore) worth of funds stolen by exploiting bridges. The LayerZero OFT Bridge exploit that resulted in the theft of $293 million (roughly Rs. 2,774 crore) through the KelpDAO hack was responsible for more than 38 percent of total losses in the quarter. Compromised admin attacks and fake token prices made up 37 percent, while compromised private keys made up 5.66 percent.
One of the recent incidents involved Taiko, an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain that saw its bridge protocols collapse. Hackers managed to steal $1.7 million (roughly Rs. 16.10 crore) by compromising Taiko's chain state verification mechanism. The protocol is now asking its users to withdraw their funds from the bridges of this blockchain network. Other notable incidents of the past quarter include Secret Network Bridge suffering a $4.7 million (roughly Rs. 44.52 crore) exploit due to an Infinite Mint Bug, and THORchain halted trading after a suspected $10 million (roughly Rs. 94.72 crore) exploit.
As per a report published by blockchain security company Hacken, Web3 hacks have recorded losses of over $482 million (roughly Rs. 4,565 crore) in the first quarter of 2026. In this period, phishing and social engineering attacks dominated the period, amounting to $306 million (roughly Rs. 2,898 crore) in this quarter. This quarter also saw 44 incidents overall. Q1 2026 also witnessed a single $282 million (roughly Rs. 2,671 crore) hardware wallet scam in January, which was responsible for more than half of this quarter's damage.
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