Blockaid verified more crypto exploit incidents in the first half of 2026 than it recorded in all of 2025, with losses topping $1 billion. North Korea-linked actors took the largest share of the money stolen, while Ethereum and Solana projects absorbed the heaviest chain-level losses.
Crypto projects lost more than $1 billion to hacks during the first half of 2026, and the number of verified exploits climbed to a record, according to Blockaid. The security firm published its report on Tuesday and called H1 2026 the most-hacked half-year on record, referring to the number of incidents rather than the value stolen.
Dollar losses still came in below the year-earlier total, which the $1.5 billion Bybit exploit inflated.
North Korea-linked actors took nearly $600 million
Hackers tied to North Korea accounted for the largest share of the money stolen during H1 2026, totaling nearly $600 million. Blockaid attributed both the $285 million Drift exploit and the $292 million KelpDAO exploit to DPRK-linked actors.
Blockaid expects those attacks to persist. The firm pointed to a working pattern of LinkedIn social engineering leading to multisig signer compromise, which produced two of the four largest H1 incidents, and said there is no structural reason for it to stop.
Ethereum and Solana lost the most of any chain
Tracking losses by chain, Blockaid said Ethereum and Solana projects lost the most during the first half, at $332 million and $326 million respectively. Mega code exploits concentrate on Ethereum because the highest-value protocols, including restaking, stablecoins and DEX aggregators, live there, the firm said. On Solana, by contrast, attackers target signer infrastructure rather than contract code, Blockaid said.
Other trackers counted lower dollar losses
Blockaid's totals differed from stats reported by Immunefi. Its June 2026 Ecosystem Update put first-half losses at approximately $972 million across 207 hack incidents, and Quill Audits landed close to that figure.
Quill Audits found $935.3 million lost across 87 DeFi hacks in H1 2026. Immunefi also identified the highest-ever six-month incident count this year, yet 2026 DeFi exploit losses have fallen 74% from their 2022 peak.
Looking ahead, Blockaid predicts the number of artificial intelligence-related exploits will likely increase in the coming months. The report called Bankr's $216,000 exploit the first ever of its kind and said agent deployment is growing roughly ten times per year.
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