The first half of 2026 has earned a distinction nobody wanted: the most-hacked six-month period in crypto history by incident count. Blockaid’s H1 2026 report, released on July 28, tallied 212 verified exploits that drained over $1.1 billion from protocols, wallets, and infrastructure across the ecosystem.
The number of attacks hit a record, but the dollar figure actually dropped. H1 2025 saw roughly $2.3 billion vanish, largely because of the Bybit catastrophe that alone wiped out $1.5 billion. Remove one mega-hack from the equation, and this year’s losses would look far worse by comparison.
North Korea’s outsized role
DPRK-linked actors were responsible for approximately 66% of total losses in H1 2026, according to TRM Labs, which independently tracked 207 incidents totaling $972 million stolen in the same period.
Two breaches dominated the landscape. The KelpDAO exploit resulted in losses of roughly $292 million, while the Drift Protocol incident cost around $285 million. Combined, those two hacks accounted for nearly $577 million, or more than half of all funds stolen during the period. Both incidents were attributed to DPRK-linked groups.
