Crypto industry hacking losses fall to $26.5 million in February 2026 as security improves and major exploits decline.
The crypto industry recorded sharply lower hacking losses in February 2026. According to data from PeckShield, confirmed crypto thefts amounted to $26.5 million in the month. This number is the lowest hacking loss for a month since March 2025.
Crypto Industry Sees Sharp Decline in Monthly Hack Losses
Security researchers from PeckShieldAlert found that there were 15 major hacking incidents in the crypto ecosystem in February. Despite a number of attacks, the overall financial damage is relatively low compared to previous months.
#PeckShieldAlert In Feb. 2026, the crypto space saw 15 main hacks totaling $26.5M, representing a 98.2% YoY decrease compared to Feb. 2025 ($1.5B, including the $1.4B #Bybit drain) and a notable 69.2% MoM decrease from Jan. 2026 ($86.01M in losses).#Top5 Hacks :… pic.twitter.com/Svp7SZWp5w
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) March 1, 2026
The $26.5 million in losses represents a dramatic decrease of 98.2% from Feb. 2025. During that earlier time period, hackers were able to steal about $1.5 billion from cryptocurrency platforms.
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A large part of those losses was due to a massive exchange exploit. In February 2025, the crypto exchange Bybit experienced a record-breaking security breach to the tune of around $1.4 billion.
Compared to January 2026, February losses also dropped significantly. Data shows that January saw approximately $86.01 million in confirmed crypto thefts.
This means February hacking losses fell by about 69.2% on a month on month basis. The decrease indicates better security conditions for a number of blockchain platforms.
Several smaller exploits were responsible for most of the February losses. The top five totaled over 98% of all the funds stolen.
Security Improvements Help Reduce Crypto Hacks’ Damage
Among the largest incidents, the protocol YieldBlox.finance suffered the largest exploit. Hackers reportedly stole some $10 million during the attack.
Another major breach was on IoTeX blockchain bridge. The platform IoTeX reportedly lost about $8.8 million during the exploit.
Several decentralized finance platforms were also affected by additional incidents. The Cross Curve protocol lost around $3 million during the course of its attack.
Meanwhile, the FOOM CASH platform was hit with a $2.26 million exploit. Another DeFi lending protocol, Moonwell, lost nearly $1.8 million to a hacking loss.
Security specialists think that several factors helped in the reduction of monthly losses. First of all, there were no extremely large hacking incidents in February.
Large “mega-hacks” tend to occupy the annual loss statistics in the crypto industry. Therefore the lack of the billion dollar attacks made a big difference in the overall damages.
Second, security standards have been strengthened in the industry in recent years. Many cryptos projects are now using artificial intelligence tools for threat detection.
In addition, smart contract audits have also become more prevalent across decentralized finance platforms. Continuous monitoring systems also help to identify suspicious activity faster.
Another potential factor has to do with the conditions in the market during February. Bitcoin had earlier in the month briefly fallen below the $70,000 mark.
The lower the level of market activity, the less volume is traded across DeFi protocols. As a result, hackers may have fewer opportunities to exploit active smart contracts.
Even so, security firms warn that crypto platforms are still attractive to cyber criminals. Blockchain ecosystems continue to control billions of dollars in digital assets.
While the losses recorded in February were less, the crypto industry is still building its defenses to mitigate against future attacks.