Cryptocurrencies are built on cryptography, blockchain, and decentralization. However, this doesn’t mean the entire crypto ecosystem is bulletproof. Exchanges, cross-chain bridges, wallets, validators, and smart contracts add additional layers of infrastructure—and these repeatedly become targets for hackers.
The history of cryptocurrencies already includes attacks where hundreds of millions of dollars disappeared within a few hours. In some cases, a bug in a smart contract was enough, other times a compromised private key or sophisticated social engineering. Moreover, it’s increasingly not about lone hackers, but professional groups connected to state structures.
The risk hasn’t disappeared even in 2026. According to TRM Labs, 207 crypto hacks were recorded in the first half of the year alone, with total damages of approximately $972 million. Two major April attacks on KelpDAO and Drift Protocol represented about $577 million combined.
TOP 10 Largest Crypto Hacks
| Rank | Project / Platform | Year | Approximate Attack Value | Main Issue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Bybit | 2025 | $1.5 billion | Signature process compromise |
| 2. | Ronin Network | 2022 | $620 million | Stolen validator keys |
| 3. | Poly Network | 2021 | $610+ million | Cross-chain infrastructure bug |
| 4. | BNB Chain – BSC Token Hub | 2022 | $570 million | Blockchain bridge vulnerability |
| 5. | Coincheck | 2018 | $530+ million | Compromised hot wallet |
| 6. | Mt. Gox | 2011–2014 | approximately $470 million | Server and private key compromise |
| 7. | Wormhole | 2022 | $325 million | Cross-chain bridge validation bug |
| 8. | DMM Bitcoin | 2024 | $308 million | Social engineering and transaction compromise |
| 9. | KelpDAO | 2026 | $292 million | RPC infrastructure compromise |
| 10. | Drift Protocol | 2026 | approximately $285 million | Social engineering and permission compromise |
The amounts are rounded according to the value of assets at approximately the time of each incident. For some hacks, data varies slightly between sources due to cryptocurrency price movements, subsequent asset freezing, or partial fund returns. The ranking therefore represents an approximate comparison of the scale of individual attacks, not a precise accounting of final losses.
Table of Contents – TOP 10 Largest Crypto Hacks:
- 1. Bybit – 1,5 miliardy dolarů
- 2. Ronin Network – přibližně 620 milionů dolarů
- 3. Poly Network – více než 610 milionů dolarů
- 4. BNB Chain – přibližně 570 milionů dolarů
- 5. Coincheck – více než 530 milionů dolarů
- 6. Mt. Gox – hack, který změnil Bitcoin
- 7. Wormhole – přibližně 325 milionů dolarů
- 8. DMM Bitcoin – 308 milionů dolarů
- 9. KelpDAO – přibližně 292 milionů dolarů
- 10. Drift Protocol – přibližně 285 milionů dolarů
- Potenciálně největší krypto hack historie: LuBian
- Co mají největší krypto hacky společného?
- Jak snížit riziko ztráty kryptoměn?
1. Bybit – $1.5 Billion
The Bybit crypto exchange hack on February 21, 2025, became the largest publicly confirmed cryptocurrency theft in history. Attackers obtained approximately 401,000 ETH worth nearly $1.5 billion at the time. The FBI subsequently attributed the attack to North Korean actors designated as TraderTraitor.
This wasn’t a simple password breach or a classic attack on the Ethereum blockchain itself. According to Chainalysis analysis, the attackers compromised a Safe developer’s computer and modified the user interface used during transaction signing. Bybit representatives saw something different on the screen than what they were actually cryptographically signing.
The case demonstrated one of the biggest weaknesses of modern crypto: even a very well-secured cold wallet can be compromised if an attacker infiltrates the process by which people authorize transactions.
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2. Ronin Network – Approximately $620 Million
Ronin Network was created as blockchain infrastructure for the popular game Axie Infinity. In March 2022, however, its bridge became the target of one of the largest attacks the then crypto industry had experienced.
Attackers gained control of a sufficient number of validators and drained 173,600 ETH along with 25.5 million USDC. The U.S. Treasury Department later linked the attack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group and valued the theft at nearly $620 million.
The biggest problem was excessive concentration of trust. Five out of nine validators were needed to confirm a withdrawal, and the attacker managed to compromise the necessary keys. Instead of breaking the blockchain itself, they circumvented the security model of the infrastructure around it.
Ronin became a textbook example of why cross-chain bridges can be one of the most sensitive points of the entire DeFi ecosystem.
3. Poly Network – Over $610 Million
In August 2021, a massive attack also hit the cross-chain platform Poly Network. A hacker exploited a vulnerability in the mechanism used for communication and asset transfer between different blockchains and gained control over cryptocurrencies worth over $610 million.
However, the story took an unexpected turn. The attacker began gradually returning a large portion of the funds and presented himself as a “white hat” hacker whose goal was supposedly to highlight a security problem. Poly Network eventually recovered most of the assets.
But in terms of the scale of the attack, this changes nothing. The hacker demonstrated that a single critical flaw in infrastructure connecting multiple blockchains can open access to hundreds of millions of dollars within minutes.
4. BNB Chain – approximately $570 million
Another massive problem with cross-chain technology came in October 2022. This time, the target was BSC Token Hub, the native bridge between BNB Beacon Chain and BNB Smart Chain.
The attacker managed to exploit a flaw in proof verification and fraudulently created approximately two million BNB. Their value at the time reached nearly $570 million. BNB Chain publicly confirmed the attack and the network was temporarily halted to prevent the transfer of most of the funds. According to BNB Chain, the attacker managed to move approximately $100 million off the network.
The incident is particularly interesting because of the difference between the value of assets created and the actual realized loss. The hacker gained control over BNB worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but the validators’ quick response prevented them from freely disposing of the entire amount.
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5. Coincheck – more than $530 million
Japanese exchange Coincheck went down in cryptocurrency theft history in January 2018, even before the current generation of DeFi protocols emerged.
Attackers stole approximately 523 million NEM tokens. Their value at the time was around $530 million, making the incident one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts ever at that moment.
A major problem was the storage of a significant amount of assets in a hot wallet, meaning a wallet connected to online infrastructure. While this facilitates quick processing of withdrawals, it also creates greater opportunities for remote attacks than properly secured offline storage.
Coincheck subsequently announced compensation for affected clients.
6. Mt. Gox – the hack that changed Bitcoin
If there’s a name that has become synonymous with the risks of early crypto exchanges, it’s Mt. Gox.
The exchange once processed a significant portion of global Bitcoin trading. The U.S. Department of Justice later stated that attackers gained unauthorized access to Mt. Gox servers and private keys and stole at least approximately 647,000 BTC between September 2011 and May 2014.
At the prices of that period, the value of the lost bitcoins is often calculated at roughly $460 to $470 million. At today’s prices, it would of course be a dramatically larger amount, which is why we use the value of assets approximately at the time of the incident in this ranking.
Mt. Gox halted operations in 2014, and its collapse damaged public confidence in the entire cryptocurrency sector for a long time.
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7. Wormhole – approximately $325 million
The year 2022 was exceptionally painful for blockchain bridges. Even before the attack on Ronin, hackers managed to exploit a vulnerability in the Wormhole cross-chain protocol.
The attacker created 120,000 wETH without corresponding collateral. The value of the assets at the time of the attack reached approximately $320 to $325 million.
The problem lay in the validation of messages between blockchains. The attacker managed to create data that the system considered legitimately signed, and obtained new tokens based on it.
Jump Crypto subsequently provided the missing ETH to restore the system’s backing.
Wormhole, together with Ronin and BNB Token Hub, demonstrates how attractive a target bridges between blockchains are: they often concentrate enormous amounts of capital in a single infrastructure layer.
8. DMM Bitcoin – $308 million
The hack of Japanese exchange DMM Bitcoin in May 2024 is important mainly because of how sophisticated attacks on crypto companies have become.
According to a joint investigation by the FBI, the U.S. Defense Cyber Crime Center, and Japanese police, the theft was carried out by North Korean actors TraderTraitor. The result was a loss of 4,502.9 BTC valued at approximately $308 million at the time.
The attack started completely outside the blockchain. A hacker posing as a recruiter contacted an employee of Ginco, which provided cryptocurrency wallet software, via LinkedIn. A malicious Python script disguised as a programming test was part of the fake recruitment process. The subsequent compromise of infrastructure enabled the attackers to manipulate a legitimate transaction request related to DMM.
DMM clearly demonstrates that the weakest link doesn’t have to be the blockchain or smart contract. It can be a person sitting in front of a computer.
9. KelpDAO – approximately $292 million
One of the biggest hacks of 2026 hit KelpDAO on April 18. Attackers obtained approximately 116,500 rsETH valued at around $292 million at the time.
This wasn’t a classic smart contract flaw either. The attacker compromised LayerZero’s internal RPC infrastructure and simultaneously disrupted the availability of external RPC nodes. KelpDAO used a configuration with only a single required DVN verifier, which created a critical point of failure. The system subsequently accepted fake data as legitimate and released rsETH without a corresponding operation actually occurring on the source blockchain.
Chainalysis and other security companies linked the attack to North Korean actors. The incident is one of the best examples of a new generation of attacks where the hacker doesn’t need to find a bug directly in blockchain code – it’s enough to compromise the infrastructure that the blockchain application trusts.
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10. Drift Protocol – approximately $285 million
Just a few weeks before KelpDAO, Drift Protocol on Solana was hit by a major attack.
TRM Labs estimates the loss from the attack on April 1, 2026 at approximately $285 million. Security analysts linked the attack to North Korean actors who had reportedly spent several months building relationships with people around the protocol and using sophisticated social engineering.
The case is further proof of the shift in hacking methods. Attackers increasingly don’t try to break cryptography. Instead, they look for a person with sufficient permissions, gain their trust, and then use legitimate access mechanisms against the project itself.
Drift and KelpDAO together represented the majority of cryptocurrency value stolen during the first part of 2026.
Potentially the biggest crypto hack in history: LuBian
We haven’t included one particularly interesting case in the main ranking – LuBian.
Blockchain analytics company Arkham Intelligence announced in August 2025 that Chinese Bitcoin mining pool LuBian had allegedly lost 127,426 BTC in December 2020. Bitcoin had a value of approximately $3.5 billion at the time of the incident. If the analysis is correct, this would not only be the largest Bitcoin hack, but the largest crypto theft in history.
However, the case has a significant catch. LuBian did not publicly announce the attack at the time of its alleged execution, and the information was reconstructed almost five years later using on-chain analysis. Arkham states that blockchain transactions and messages sent to the attacker’s addresses indicate that a massive loss did indeed occur. According to analysts, the cause may have been a weak private key generation method.
This is why we list LuBian separately. If we only consider widely confirmed and publicly documented incidents, Bybit still holds first place. If the retrospective analysis of LuBian is included, the ranking gets an entirely new number one.
What do the biggest crypto hacks have in common?
Looking at individual attacks reveals an important trend: the biggest problem is not the blockchain cryptography itself.
Attackers repeatedly exploit several weak points:
- compromised private keys and signing devices,
- social engineering of employees,
- insufficiently decentralized validation mechanisms,
- bugs in cross-chain bridges,
- compromised off-chain infrastructure,
- excessively high concentration of capital under a single security model.
Moreover, developments in 2025 and 2026 show a shift toward targeted attacks on people, devices, and operational infrastructure. CertiK, for example, states that in the first half of 2026, wallet compromises were the most financially devastating category of attacks, causing losses of over $444 million.
For a hacker, it may not be easiest to look for a mathematical flaw in the blockchain. It’s often more effective to convince a person with access to hundreds of millions of dollars to open the wrong file or sign the wrong transaction.
How to reduce the risk of cryptocurrency loss?
The history of the biggest crypto hacks shows that security is not a single product or a single feature. It’s a combination of proper custody, choosing trustworthy services, and everyday habits.
The average investor should distinguish between funds intended for active trading and long-term held cryptocurrencies. Larger long-term positions can be held in one’s own wallet, while keeping only the funds needed for trading on an exchange.
Equally important is using two-factor authentication, checking the address and content of every signed transaction, protecting the seed phrase, and not trusting unsolicited job offers, investment opportunities, or messages requesting software installation.
However, even using a hardware wallet does not automatically protect against signing a malicious transaction by mistake or the risk of the protocol into which the user deposits their cryptocurrencies.
The biggest crypto hacks therefore do not carry a simple message that “cryptocurrencies are not safe.” They show something more fundamental: the security of a blockchain is only as strong as the infrastructure, people, and processes we build around it.
And with the growing value of the cryptocurrency market, it is precisely this layer that will become an increasingly attractive target.
