Crypto Hack Statistics 2026: Losses, Vectors and Trends

Video transcript

In Guardian's count of DefiLlama data, about 8.78 billion dollars was stolen in 328 crypto hacks in 2026, through November second. That is already the worst year on record.

Binance lost 6.36 billion dollars on October 29, according to TRM Labs. That is 72 percent of the year. Without it, 2026 stands at 2.42 billion, close to 2025's pace.

One incident can define a year. Bybit was 52 percent of 2025. Incidents have more than doubled, from 148 in 2025 to 328 so far.

The median hack was half a million dollars. Yet the ten largest took 92 percent of losses, and centralized exchanges took 78 percent in five incidents.

Under DefiLlama's labels, 82 percent of 2026 losses came from offchain attacks on keys, signers, infrastructure and people. Code exploits are most incidents, but a minority of dollars.

Each firm counts different things, so totals differ. TRM Labs puts 2026 at 8.7 billion as of October 30. Third quarter totals from CertiK, Hacken and DefiLlama all land between 1.18 and 1.26 billion.

For offchain risk, Guardian's Managed Security maps every path to a protocol's funds and reviews every multisig transaction before signing. For code, Vanguard pairs a two-team audit with invariant fuzzing.

Read the full breakdown by vector, chain and target, and talk to Guardian about keeping your protocol out of next year's table.

In DefiLlama's data, 2026 is already the worst year on record for crypto hacks, by value and by number of incidents.

This page collects the headline numbers in one place, with data to November 2, 2026. Every DefiLlama figure is Guardian's own computation from DefiLlama's public hacks dataset.

Figures from Chainalysis, CertiK, TRM Labs, Immunefi and Hacken are theirs, cited as published.

Key Statistics at a Glance

• $8.78B stolen in 2026 to November 2, across 328 incidents. Both are the highest of any year in DefiLlama's data.
• 3.5 times the same period of 2025, which had $2.51B across 120 incidents.
• $6.36B left Binance on October 29, 2026, according to TRM Labs. That is 72% of 2026's total.
• $2.42B is 2026 without Binance, close to 2025's $2.51B for the same months.
• $0.5M is the median 2026 incident. 62% of incidents with a known amount were under $1M.
• 92% of 2026 losses came from the ten largest incidents.
• 82% of 2026 losses were offchain attacks under DefiLlama's labels, 90% when filed by root cause.
• 78% of 2026 losses hit centralized exchanges, in just five incidents.
• $7.4B of 2026's $8.7B in hack value is attributed to North Korea by TRM Labs.

The largest hacks of 2026

Amounts are DefiLlama's reported losses before any freezes or returns. Mercado Bitcoin, a $40M loss on November 2, ties Step Finance for tenth.

Our Kelp DAO and Drift write-ups cover two of them in depth.

Losses by Year, 2016 to 2026

One incident can define a year. Bybit was 52% of 2025, and Binance is 72% of 2026.

2020 is inflated by LuBian, a $3.5B weak-key loss that DefiLlama dates to December 2020. Without it, 2020 was $0.48B.

Losses by Attack Vector

DefiLlama files each incident under one classification. Here are the eight classes with the largest losses from 2024 to 2026, in millions of dollars.

Binance drives 2026's infrastructure line, and Bybit drives 2025's social engineering line.

Without Binance, 2026's largest classes are key compromise ($721M across 36 incidents) and bridge and cross-chain ($701M across 34).

By count, code bugs lead. Token and share accounting (58 incidents), access control (54) and protocol logic (45) were 2026's most frequent classes.

Onchain vs offchain

Grouping the classes into two buckets gives the clearest split. Offchain means keys, signers, infrastructure and people; onchain means a flaw in deployed code.

Shares use DefiLlama's labels. Our onchain vs offchain report explains the split, an adjusted view and why the reports disagree.

Losses by Target and Chain

By target

• Centralized exchanges: $6.82B in five 2026 incidents (78%). They took 70% in 2025 and 44% in 2024.
• DeFi protocols: $1.19B across 233 incidents in 2026 (14%), the largest count of any target.
• Chains: $435M across 25 incidents in 2026, led by Liquid Network.
• Wallets: $238M across 13 incidents in 2026, led by COLDCARD.

By chain

• Multichain incidents took $7.21B in 2026, Binance included.
• Solana led single-chain losses in 2026 with $369M across 17 incidents, mostly Drift and Step Finance.
• Ethereum had $167M in 83 single-chain incidents, and appears in 116 incidents in all.
• BSC had 47 single-chain incidents but only $44M in losses.
• Bridges: incidents flagged as bridge hacks reached $753.5M across 51 in 2026, up from $38.3M across 11 in 2025.

How the Reports Compare

Each firm counts different things, so totals differ. Here are the latest headline figures side by side.

Chainalysis includes thefts from individual victims, $713M in 2025. CertiK also counts phishing and scams; its 247 Q3 incidents are about twice DefiLlama's 124.

Quarterly figures agree closely. All three Q3 2026 totals land between $1.18B and $1.26B.

Two related questions have their own reports: whether hacked protocols were audited and what a hack costs beyond the stolen funds.

How We Counted

• Data: DefiLlama's hacks dataset, pulled November 4, 2026, with the latest entry dated November 2. It holds 1,336 incidents.
• Years: calendar years in UTC, by the incident date DefiLlama records.
• Amounts: reported losses before recoveries, freezes or reimbursements. 21 of 2026's incidents have no amount.
• Coverage: incidents at named protocols, exchanges, chains, wallet products and firms. Thefts from individual users, which Chainalysis counts, are generally not listed.
• Early years have few entries (five in 2016), so treat their totals as lower bounds.
• Onchain and offchain use the same rules as our onchain vs offchain report.

Anyone can rebuild these figures from DefiLlama's public API. Speed matters too: our study of how fast crypto hacks are detected times 30 of these incidents.

How Guardian Helps

The largest losses above came through keys, signers and infrastructure. Managed Security is built for that side.

Guardian maps every path to a protocol's funds, from the contracts to the keys, signers and multisigs behind them. Its security operations team reviews every multisig transaction before it is signed.

For code, Vanguard pairs a two-team audit with invariant fuzzing and six months of update review.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much crypto was stolen in hacks in 2026?

In Guardian's count of DefiLlama data, $8.78 billion across 328 incidents from January 1 to November 2, 2026. TRM Labs puts it at $8.7 billion as of October 30. Binance's $6.36 billion is 72% of the total.

What is the largest crypto hack ever?

Binance on October 29, 2026, at about $6.36 billion, which TRM Labs calls the largest hack in history. In DefiLlama's dataset it is followed by LuBian ($3.5 billion, 2020) and Bybit ($1.4 billion, February 2025).

How much crypto was stolen in 2025?

It depends on the source. DefiLlama lists $2.72 billion across 148 incidents. CertiK reports $3.35 billion, Immunefi $3.4 billion, and Chainalysis over $3.4 billion through early December. Bybit's $1.4 billion February loss is about half of DefiLlama's total.

What causes most crypto hack losses?

By value, offchain attacks on keys, signers, infrastructure and people: 82% of 2026 losses under DefiLlama's labels and 90% when incidents are filed by root cause. Code exploits are the majority of incidents but a minority of dollars.

Sources

• DefiLlama: Hacks dataset API (pulled November 4, 2026)
• TRM Labs: North Korea Steals USD 6.36 Billion From Binance in the Largest Hack in History (October 29, 2026)
• TRM Labs: North Korea Has Stolen USD 12.8 Billion in Crypto, USD 7.4 Billion of It in 2026 (October 30, 2026)
• Cointelegraph: Crypto Security Losses Surge to $1.26B in Q3, citing CertiK (October 1, 2026)
• Cointelegraph: Bitget, Liquid Exploits Push Q3 Crypto Hacks Toward $1.2B, citing Hacken (October 15, 2026)
• CertiK: Hack3d, The Web3 Security Report 2025 (December 23, 2025)
• Chainalysis: North Korea Drives Record $2 Billion Crypto Theft Year (December 18, 2025)
• Immunefi: What an Onchain Hack Actually Costs, 2024 to 2025 Update (March 25, 2026)
• Guardian: Onchain vs Offchain Attacks, Where Hack Losses Came From (November 2026)