Cryptoupdated 28m ago2 min read
Ark’s Lorenzo Valente Says Crypto Hack Losses Hit $8.7 Billion in 2026
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation attributed the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor hacking group, which allegedly exploited vulnerabilities in the exchange’s operational infrastructure.”
“The crypto industry saw a string of high-value hacks this year, including September’s $387 million Bitget hack and the $320 million Liquid Network exploit, as well as April’s $295 million Drift Protocol exploit.”
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ARK says 2026 hack losses around $8.7B, surpassing projected annual on-chain revenue. Hack losses total 57 cents per $1 earned onchain since 2017.
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Losses outpace on-chain revenue
ARK Investment Management research director Lorenzo Valente said crypto hackers stole $8.7 billion year to date in 2026, surpassing the $5.6 billion estimated annual onchain revenue for 2026. Valente said blockchain protocols have lost 57 cents for every $1 earned onchain since 2017, and he added that the industry has lost about $26.9 billion to hacks while earning $47 billion in total onchain revenue.
Valente wrote in a Thursday X post that "Security is the bottleneck," and he shared a chart showing $8.7 billion lost to crypto hacks had already exceeded the $5.6 billion onchain revenue estimate. Valente said the recent $6.3 billion stolen in the Binance hack alone exceeded his estimate for full-year 2026 onchain revenue, and he said value lost to hacks is on track to exceed onchain revenue by year-end for the first time since 2020.
Big hacks and DeFi impact
The crypto industry saw a string of high-value hacks in 2026, including September’s $387 million Bitget hack and the $320 million Liquid Network exploit, as well as April’s $295 million Drift Protocol exploit.
The mounting security exploits are weighing on the institutional appetite for DeFi, and JPMorgan analysts identified bridge security as a long-standing challenge for the industry.
DefiLlama data showed total value locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) fell nearly 10% since the Binance exploit, dropping from $85.9 billion on Oct. 29 to $77.4 billion on Thursday.
Those incidents are weighing on institutional appetite for decentralized finance, and the shift was tied to ARK’s estimate that 2026 losses already exceed projected annual revenue.
What the figures imply next
ARK Invest research put 2026 hack losses at $8.78 billion, while ARK projected roughly $5.6 billion in on-chain revenue for the same period, leaving a shortfall near $3.2 billion. Blockchain protocols lost 57 cents for every $1 generated since 2017 due to hacks, and the comparison was framed as a key metric for how security failures track against on-chain revenue.
The October 29 Binance breach accounted for approximately $6.36 billion, representing more than 72% of the year’s recorded losses, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation attributed the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor hacking group. DeFi-related losses reached approximately $1.19 billion in 2026 compared with $757 million in 2025, and an approximately $295 million exploit involving Solana-based trading platform Drift and a $293 million attack affecting liquid-restaking protocol Kelp DAO were cited.