Crypto hackers have stolen $8.7 billion so far in 2026, according to Lorenzo Valente, director of digital asset research at ARK Investment Management. That amount has already surpassed the $5.6 billion in estimated annual onchain revenue for 2026, Valente said in a Thursday X post.
Valente said the industry has lost 57 cents to hacks for every $1 earned onchain by blockchain protocols since 2017. Over that period, crypto losses to hacks total about $26.9 billion, while total onchain revenue is about $47 billion, he added.
Binance hack exceeds full-year revenue estimate
The recent $6.3 billion stolen in the Binance hack alone exceeded Valente’s estimate for full-year 2026 onchain revenue. Losses to hacks are on track to exceed onchain revenue by year-end for the first time since 2020, according to Valente.
The industry has seen several high-value hacks this year: September’s $387 million Bitget hack, a $320 million Liquid Network exploit, and April’s $295 million Drift Protocol exploit.
DeFi TVL falls after Binance exploit
Mounting security exploits are weighing on institutional appetite for DeFi. In an April research note, JPMorgan analysts identified bridge security as a long-standing challenge for the industry.
Total value locked in DeFi fell nearly 10% since the Binance exploit, from $85.9 billion on Oct. 29 to $77.4 billion on Thursday, according to DefiLlama.
“Security is the bottleneck,” Valente wrote in the X post, sharing a chart comparing hack losses with estimated onchain revenue.
