A July 30 arXiv preprint links malicious smart contracts to 5,742 victims and $3.48M losses, showing how they deceive wallet previews by displaying small gains while diverting funds to attackers.
Hacken's Q2 2026 report reveals institutional investors are shifting focus to operational security beyond smart contract audits, as prior audits failed to prevent $764M in crypto exploits. Compromised keys and infrastructure caused 88.3% of losses, prompting new due diligence practices.
Cardano activated its van Rossem hard fork, upgrading the mainnet to version 11. This update is expected to lower smart contract execution costs and prepares the network for the Ouroboros Leios scalability upgrade, anticipated in late 2026.
Exploring the basics and value of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), their creation, investment potential, and future in art and collectibles.
Summer.fi's automated vaults were exploited on July 6, with Blockaid reporting approximately $6 million drained. The incident highlights risks in delegated DeFi yield and the need for transparency in automated systems.
TRM Labs reported a record 207 crypto hacks in H1 2026, yet total losses fell to $972 million. This shift highlights that while more protocols are targeted, significant losses stem from operational system compromises like key management and custody, not just smart contract exploits.
La sécurité des cryptomonnaies repose sur la gestion des clés privées, qui sont le point faible principal. 40% des pertes dues aux hacks proviennent de problèmes de clés privées, non de failles de smart contracts. Des milliards de dollars ont été perdus.
Aztec's deprecated infrastructure experienced a second exploit, losing $2.15 million in ETH, DAI, and renBTC. This follows a similar incident last Sunday and highlights growing concerns about the security of abandoned smart contract infrastructure in the crypto space.
OP_CTV, proposed by Jeremy Rubin, defines Bitcoin spending conditions in a template structure. It verifies transaction outputs against a commitment hash, enabling complex vault constructions and trust-minimized smart contract primitives.
Aztec Connect, a deprecated DeFi platform, lost approximately $2.1 million in crypto on Sunday after an attacker exploited its transaction verification function. Aztec Labs confirmed the incident, stating it did not affect the current Aztec network users or assets. The exploit highlights the risks associated with abandoned DeFi contracts.
Crypto lending protocol Radiant Capital is winding down operations after a $50 million exploit by North Korea's Lazarus Group in October 2024. The protocol will enter a "maintenance state" but will cease development and upgrades.
Un hacker éthique a découvert et corrigé une faille dans un smart contract d'ICO de 2016, débloquant 1 003 ETH (environ 2 millions de dollars) pour les rendre aux investisseurs originaux.
A pseudonymous white hat hacker, '0xflorent,' has recovered approximately $2 million worth of Ether locked in a decade-old faulty ICO smart contract for Hong Coin. The hacker exploited an integer overflow vulnerability in an admin function to trigger the refund mechanism for 48 investors.
Starknet introduces strkBTC, an ERC-20 token backed by locked BTC, offering both public and shielded modes for transactions, with selective disclosure for regulatory compliance.
This opinion piece examines whether DeFi has failed to deliver on its original promises of user sovereignty, security, and decentralization. The author argues that while DeFi proved public settlement and transparent ledgers can work at scale, it has struggled with security breaches totaling billions, new attack vectors including AI, and a shift toward institutional adoption that leaves the permissionless vision behind. The piece analyzes hack data from 2021-2025, compares DeFi loss rates to TradFi, and uses the Aave rsETH incident as a case study of how mature DeFi crisis management still requires centralized governance intervention.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) faces a critical question in 2026: is its original vision of user-held keys and open markets still achievable? Despite early promise, DeFi has grappled with exploits, failures, and a shift from true decentralization to new forms of trust and risk.
I believe the hardest question for DeFi in 2026 is whether the original dream is still alive. The collective bargain was simple. Users would hold their own keys. Code would execute the rules. Markets would stay open. Ledgers would be visible. Intermediaries would lose power because financial services could run on public smart contracts rather […] The post DeFi losses are now 8,500% higher than TradFi breaches per dollar moved appeared first on CryptoSlate.
Umbra, a privacy-focused crypto protocol, took down its front-end website after discovering around $800,000 in stolen funds was moved through it by hackers connected to recent high-profile exploits. The action comes days after the Kelp protocol was exploited for over $280 million, which security researchers suspect was carried out by North Korean hackers. Umbra stated it has been working with security researchers and noted that all funds moved through its protocol can be identified. Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, warned that changing the front end may not be enough to avoid regulatory scrutiny, citing his own conviction for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Hackers have stolen over $17 billion across 518 crypto incidents over the past decade, with private key compromises being the leading attack vector, according to DefiLlama data. Around 22.3% of incidents stemmed from brute force private key attacks and 18.2% from unknown methods, while 10% involved multi-signature wallet phishing. The findings come after the industry's largest 2026 hack drained $290-293 million from Kelp DAO's rsETH bridge, with DeFi protocols losing $600 million in the past 60 days.
