Crypto hacks caused losses of $1.18 billion across 107 incidents in the third quarter of 2026, according to security company Hacken, Cointelegraph reported on Thursday, 15 October 2026.
All the figures in this story are Hacken’s own. Other security firms publish their own quarterly tallies using different methods, so their totals may not match.
Where the losses came from
According to Hacken’s Q3 report, as reported by Cointelegraph, 77% of the losses, about $906 million, were linked to three kinds of weak spot:
- compromised suppliers or developer tools;
- fixes that had been publicly disclosed but not yet deployed; and
- other components that sat outside security reviews.
In plain terms, most of the money was not lost through flaws in a project’s own core code. It was lost through the tools, partners and infrastructure around it, or through known problems that had not been patched in time.
Smart-contract bugs were still the most common type of attack. Hacken counted 71 smart-contract incidents, with combined losses of $228 million, according to Cointelegraph.
The biggest incidents
Hacken named four incidents as the largest of the quarter, Cointelegraph reported:
- the Bitget hack, at $387 million;
- the Liquid Network exploit, at $320 million;
- the Tectonic exploit, at $120 million; and
- a Coldcard firmware vulnerability, associated with “an estimated $115 million” in losses.
Those four accounted for about 80% of the quarter’s losses. At the other end of the scale, 98 of the 107 incidents involved losses under $10 million, and the median loss was $670,000. That means a typical incident was relatively small, while a handful of very large ones drove the total.
According to Cointelegraph, Hacken’s figures make Q3 2026 the most damaging quarter for crypto hacks since the first quarter of 2025, when the Bybit exchange lost $1.4 billion in a theft Cointelegraph attributes to North Korea.
How much came back
Not all of the money stayed lost. Hacken says about $387 million, around 33% of gross losses, was returned or reversed, Cointelegraph reported. That included:
- Liquid Network: self-described “white hats” returned $272 million, about 85% of what was taken.
- Tectonic: validators on the Cronos network rolled back 114 minutes of settled blockchain history, reversing about $111.2 million of the $120.4 million in affected borrowing.
- Bitget: stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether froze about $340,000 linked to the theft.
Separately, operators covered another $410 million of user losses from their own funds, according to the report. Bitget’s user protection fund covered $387 million, and Triple-A, Coinsbuy and TAC repaid about $22 million. In those cases users were made whole, but the stolen assets stayed with the attackers.
That leaves about $384 million, or 32% of gross losses, that was neither returned nor covered, Hacken says.
Hacken’s advice
Hacken urged the industry to strengthen the security of third-party suppliers, developer tools and other external infrastructure that may not be covered by audits, Cointelegraph reported. It also recommended that protocols widen their audits to include oracles, bridges, custody systems, signing authorities and other privileged components.
What we don’t know
The figures come from one company’s count, reported second-hand by Cointelegraph; TSN has not reviewed Hacken’s full report or its methods. Who was behind most of these incidents is not stated in the reporting. Totals from other trackers may differ.
What this means
- The weak points are around the code, not just in it. Hacken links 77% of Q3 losses to suppliers, tools and unpatched fixes.
- A few big hits dominate. Four incidents made up about 80% of losses; the median was $670,000.
- Recovery helped, but not fully. About $384 million was neither returned nor covered, by Hacken’s count.
Sources
- Cointelegraph, “Bitget, Liquid exploits push Q3 crypto hacks toward $1.2B”, Zoltan Vardai, 15 October 2026 (citing Hacken’s Q3 2026 report). https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitget-liquid-exploits-push-crypto-hacks-near-12b-q3
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