"Another 300 Billion Lost"...DeFi Market 'Shocked' by Worst Hacking in 2026

▲ Cryptocurrency Crime, Cryptocurrency Hacking/AI Generated Image

The DeFi (Decentralized Finance) market has once again faced a major security incident. With cumulative damages exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars in just a few weeks, a sense of crisis is rapidly spreading across the entire industry.

According to cryptocurrency specialized media The Street on April 19th local time, the DeFi protocol Kelp DAO suffered hacking damages of approximately $293 million, marking it as the largest attack case in 2026 so far.

This incident is considered even more serious because it is not an isolated event. In less than 20 days since the beginning of this year, over $600 million has already been leaked due to hacking, and at least 12 projects have been affected.

Kelp DAO is an Ethereum-based ‘liquid restaking’ protocol that issues rsETH tokens when staking assets like stETH or cbETH are deposited. The problem was the ‘bridge’ structure built to utilize this rsETH across multiple blockchains. During the process of circulating tokens across various networks, a large amount of collateral is concentrated in a central point, and this point is analyzed to have acted as the core vulnerability for the attack.

The industry views this incident not as a simple hack but as a recurrence of ‘structural risks’. It is pointed out that the attack surface is continuously expanding due to the combination of DeFi's uniquely complex smart contract structure and cross-chain bridge design.

Indeed, looking at major hacking incidents that have occurred since 2026, there is a growing trend of attacks targeting overall system design vulnerabilities rather than simple code errors. As attackers become increasingly sophisticated, analysis suggests an increase in attacks utilizing complex structures rather than single vulnerabilities.

Market sentiment is also rapidly cooling down. Repeated large-scale hacking incidents are acting as a key factor eroding investor confidence, and there is a trend of expanding risk premiums, especially for DeFi projects with larger deposited assets.

*Disclaimer: This article is for investment reference only and we are not responsible for any investment losses based on it. The content should be interpreted for informational purposes only.*