Cryptocurrency Hacking in First Half of Year Reaches All-Time High…$1 Billion Evaporates in 212 Attacks

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In the first half of 2026, cryptocurrency hacking incidents reached an all-time high of 212, with administrator privilege keys and AI agents emerging as new security vulnerabilities.

According to investment media FXStreet on July 29 (local time), blockchain security firm Blockaid reported that 212 attacks were identified in cryptocurrency projects during the first half of this year. This figure is 3.4 times the total number of verified incidents last year, with total damages amounting to $1 billion and an average loss of $5.4 million per incident.

The largest damage occurred in April with the KelpDAO attack. The attacker breached the cross-chain messaging system through a compromised bridge, resulting in a loss of $292 million. In the same month, $285 million was siphoned off from the Drift protocol in less than 12 minutes after a multisig account was compromised. The combined damages from these two incidents totaled $577 million, exceeding half of the total losses in the first half of the year. In terms of historical damage scale, only the $1.5 billion hack at Bybit in February 2025 surpassed this.

By attack vector, misuse of administrator privilege keys accounted for the largest damage, totaling $790 million. On-chain protocol damages were estimated at $524 million, and cross-chain bridge damages at $372 million. Blockaid analyzed that the increasing sophistication of attacker techniques using AI and the activities of sanctioned threat organizations, including North Korea, led to the surge in incidents. Specifically, AI agents were identified as the fastest-rising new attack vector.

By blockchain, Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) recorded the most significant losses, with damages of $332 million and $326 million, respectively. Among Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-based Layer 1s, attacks were concentrated on Ethereum, BNB, and Avalanche (AVAX). Non-EVM chains experienced the second-largest type of damage due to Solana's impact. Blockaid warned that future incidents involving multisig signer compromise, EIP-7702 related incidents, bridge vulnerability attacks, and AI agent attacks could further increase.

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