Crypto losses topped $1 billion in the first half of 2026 as the industry recorded its highest number of hacks in a six-month period, according to onchain security platform Blockaid.
Ethereum and Solana recorded the largest losses from incidents affecting their networks, with roughly $332 million and $326 million in stolen funds, respectively, Blockaid said in its H1 2026 security report published Tuesday.
Blockaid tracked 212 security incidents during the period, with the largest single exploit coming from KelpDAO at $292 million, while the platform verified 3.4 times as many high-threshold exploits in H1 2026 as across all of 2025.
Code exploits drove Ethereum incidents, while breaches of keys and signing infrastructure accounted for most Solana losses, according to the report.
Ethereum losses reflected the risks of high-value protocols
Ethereum incurred the highest losses from incidents in H1 2026, with attackers primarily targeting vulnerabilities in applications built on the network.
Blockaid said code exploits dominated Ethereum incidents by count, with major losses also linked to key compromises involving Humanity Protocol and StablR. CoWSwap, an Ethereum-based decentralized exchange, was the only major Ethereum incident in the report classified as a user mistake.
Blockchain losses by network in the first half of 2026. Source: Blockaid.
Blockaid identified several common attack methods targeting Ethereum, including bugs in bridges and smart contracts, unauthorized access to privileged accounts and market manipulation techniques.
The report said Ethereum remains a major target because it hosts many of the crypto industry’s most valuable applications, including restaking platforms, stablecoins and decentralized exchanges.
Solana losses surged as attackers shifted focus
Solana incurred nearly as much in losses as Ethereum during the first half of 2026, a sharp increase from the roughly $127 million in stolen funds the network recorded during 2025.
“2025 had $2.58 billion lost across 63 incidents, concentrated in Q1 by Bybit’s $1.5 billion, with Ethereum and Arbitrum the top chains by stolen-fund flow,” Blockaid CEO Ido Ben-Natan told Cointelegraph.
Blockchain losses by network in 2025. Source: Blockaid.
The change did not stem from a rise in smart contract exploits. Instead, compromised keys accounted for more than 98% of Solana’s losses, driven largely by incidents involving Drift Protocol and Step Finance, which Blockaid linked to North Korea-linked cyber groups.
Unlike Ethereum, where attackers primarily exploited vulnerabilities in protocol code, Solana incidents targeted signer infrastructure and organizational security, while a handful of code exploits involving Raydium and Volo accounted for the remaining losses.
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