$17B Stolen in Crypto Over 10 Years — The Numbers Are Getting Worse
DefiLlama confirmed: $17 billion drained across 518 hack incidents since 2016.
That is one major exploit every single week for ten years straight.
The biggest cause of losses is NOT smart contract bugs. It is private key compromises — phishing, brute-force, poor key hygiene — responsible for over $3.6B in losses alone.
2025 was the worst year ever: $4.04 billion lost in a single year.
2026 already has its first landmark: Kelp DAO rsETH bridge exploit — $290-292M drained. The largest DeFi hack of 2026 so far.
If you are in DeFi, your biggest risk is not price volatility. It is security.
Hardware wallets. No shared seed phrases. No clicking unverified links.