Cryptocurrency losses exceeded $1 billion in the first half of 2026, marking the highest number of security incidents recorded in any six-month period. Ethereum and Solana registered the greatest losses at roughly $332 million and $326 million respectively.

Security researchers tracked 212 incidents during the period. The single largest exploit involved KelpDAO and totaled $292 million. The number of high-threshold exploits was 3.4 times higher than the figure recorded across the whole of 2025.

On Ethereum, code exploits formed the majority of incidents by number. Additional losses arose from key compromises affecting Humanity Protocol and StablR. One significant case involving the decentralized exchange CoWSwap was classified as a user error. Common attack vectors included vulnerabilities in bridges and smart contracts, unauthorized access to privileged accounts and market manipulation techniques. The network continues to attract attackers because it hosts many of the industry’s highest-value applications, including restaking platforms, stablecoins and decentralized exchanges.

Solana losses rose sharply from approximately $127 million in 2025. Compromised keys accounted for more than 98 percent of the total, largely from incidents involving Drift Protocol and Step Finance that were attributed to North Korea-linked groups. A smaller number of code exploits affected Raydium and Volo. In contrast to Ethereum’s concentration on protocol-code vulnerabilities, Solana incidents primarily targeted signer infrastructure and organizational security controls.