- The volume of DeFi hacks in April has jumped to its highest level since February last year.
- Kelp and Drift have lost over $535 million in assets this month.
- The total value locked in DeFi has plunged from $163 billion to $89 billion.
Crypto hacks have surged this month, costing thousands of investors millions of dollars and putting the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry at risk.
Data compiled by DeFi Llama shows that hacks have cost investors over $1.71 billion in the last 12 months, with $606 million in April 2026 alone. They have soared to the highest level since February last year, when over $1.4 billion was lost.
The most recent hack occurred last weekend, when Kelp lost over $293 million. This exploit happened when hackers exploited a LayerZero bridge involving the rsETH asset. At the same time, Aave is now sitting on $177 million in bad debt from the rsETH collateral positions that cannot be liquidated.
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The other notable hack occurred recently, when hackers stole over $285 million from Drift, the largest perpetual futures exchange on Solana. This breach occurred when hackers used social engineering to manipulate multisig signers on the security council.
Rhea Lend lost over $7.6 million, while Grinex lost over $15 million on April 16. The other biggest hacks this month were Hyperbridge, Cyrus Finance, Venus Core Pool, SolvBTC, and Silo.
In total, data compiled by DeFi Llama shows that investors have lost over $7.7 billion in decentralized finance, accounting for 46% of all hacks in the crypto industry.
One reason for this is that the DeFi industry is lightly regulated, making it easy for hackers, including North Korea’s Lazarus Group, to find vulnerabilities in protocols.
The implication is that trust in the decentralized finance industry is waning, with many people withdrawing their funds. Data shows that the total value locked (TVL) in the industry has dropped to $89 billion from a high of $166 billion last year. Aave’s TVL has dropped to $19 billion from $46 billion last year.
In addition to these hacks, data shows that market manipulation is accelerating in the crypto industry. A good example of this is the recent RaveDAO surge, which pushed it from below $1 to $28 within days and back to below $1 today. Analysts believe this was part of insider market manipulation.
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