April 2026: Record 24 Crypto Hacks, $651M Lost

April 2026 marked the most hacked month in cryptocurrency history by number of incidents, with data tracker DeFi Llama reporting more than 20 exploits, the first time that threshold was crossed. Analysts counted at least 24 separate breaches, resulting in confirmed losses of around 651 million, according to CertiK.

The largest attack struck Kelp DAO, a decentralized finance platform, where hackers stole 292 million in assets. The incident prompted concerns over potential bad debt at Aave, a major DeFi lending protocol. Multiple organizations provided emergency funding and contributions to cover the shortfall. On April 30, the Arbitrum DAO launched a governance vote to release 30,766 frozen ETH to DeFi United in response to the exploit's fallout.

Drift Protocol, a Solana-based perpetuals trading platform, suffered the second-biggest breach, losing more than 280 million. The platform's team described it as a structured intelligence operation orchestrated over six months, not a smart contract vulnerability. Security analysts noted that both Kelp DAO and Drift fell to social engineering tactics targeting individuals with administrative key access, highlighting a shift from technical...