Crypto hackers steal nearly $76 million in June as attacks slow

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Crypto hackers steal nearly $76 million

Aztec was attacked twice

PeckShield separately noted attacks on Aztec’s deprecated infrastructure. In June, two targets were affected: Aztec Bridge lost $2.16 million, while Aztec Connect lost another $2.1 million. The Aztec Foundation said these were immutable smart contracts that the foundation no longer controls and cannot pause. Combined, the two attacks cost the project around $4 million.

June’s top 10 largest incidents also included Taiko Bridge, with $1.7 million in losses, Token of Power with $1.58 million, Raydium with $1.34 million, and LABUBU/OLPC with $1.1 million.

PeckShield said the attacker behind the Humanity Protocol exploit laundered stolen funds through Bitcoin, Solana, Hyperliquid, and BNB Chain. Some of the funds were mixed with assets linked to the separate Kelp DAO exploit. According to the firm, this pattern may indicate that the same actor was behind both attacks.

Losses since the start of the year exceeded $750 million

Since the start of 2026, crypto hacks and exploits have already cost the industry more than $750 million, according to analytics firm TRM Labs. Most of the damage came from two April attacks linked to North Korea.

On April 1, Drift Protocol lost $285 million after attackers spent months using social engineering to gain access to governance signers of the Solana-based protocol. On April 18, Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-based bridge lost $292 million due to a compromised verifier network.

Hackers are changing their approach

Hackers are increasingly using AI not as a standalone weapon, but as an acceleration tool. It helps them write phishing emails more easily, create convincing social engineering stories, analyze smart contract code, and find weaknesses in project infrastructure faster. As a result, attacks are becoming not only more technical, but also more precise: attackers can better imitate employees, investors, partners, or customer support teams.

For the crypto industry, this is especially dangerous because many hacks begin not with code, but with a person. It can be enough to convince an employee to open a malicious file, sign the wrong transaction, or hand over access to internal systems. AI lowers the entry barrier for such attacks: even less experienced groups can prepare scenarios faster, automate reconnaissance, and scale phishing campaigns. Against this backdrop, private keys, multisigs, admin rights, and bridge access are becoming even more vulnerable targets.

Earlier, we reported that in December 2025, total losses in the crypto industry from hacker attacks amounted to around $76 million.

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