The recent $292 million exploit in decentralized finance (DeFi) wasn’t just another crypto headline—it exposed how fragile these systems can be when trust breaks. The attack centered on rsETH, a token that represents staked ether, and left Aave—the biggest lending platform in DeFi—with a massive gap
Last weekend’s attack on Kelp, a liquid restaking protocol, drained nearly $300 million from its vaults. The hackers exploited weak spots in how Kelp moved assets between blockchains, a process called cross-chain bridging. This move didn’t just hurt Kelp—it rippled across several lending platforms.
In the first three months of 2026, hackers walked away with $168 million from DeFi projects—that’s down from $1. 5 billion stolen in the same stretch the year before. The biggest single hit came when someone stole $40 million from Step Finance by getting their hands on a private key. Then on January
