Crypto hacks have entered a new regime: April and May 2026 recorded 48 hacks in 51, effectively one per calendar day.

1. When did the trend started:
We are seeing the increase in monthly hacks starting in 2026, which the timeline aligns closely with the advancement in AI.
2. Who are the prime targets:
The main type of hacks are attacking the protocol logic on small to medium / legacy protocols. rsETH / Drift hack are not part of this category. In the past, the average number of protocol logic related hacks were around 5, and it has incrased to 10-15 in 2026, being the key driver of the rise in number of hacks.
3. My thesis on the potential rationale:
Hackers are leveraging AI to identify vulnerabilities more easily and efficiently. They can potentially find and exploit a $50K bug in an obscure fork that no human attacker would have bothered to audit manually. Legacy protocols with no maintenance would also be an easy target as AI can potentially help hackers to scan similar vulnerabilities.
• Secutiy audit is more important than ever
• Users need to be careful when interacting with small and legacy projects that do not have security audit or maintenance
• Projects that are no longer running should try to wind down the protocol and communicate to users to retrun the funds.
Data from @DefiLlama AI