The crypto landscape faced a considerably turbulent beginning to the year 2026, with a massive rise in hacks throughout January. Particularly, January 2026 has recorded a loss of up to $86.01M in diverse exploits across diverse platforms and investors. As per the data from PeckShieldAlert, despite this increase, the overall losses of this month denote a slight 1.42% year-over-year decline. Back in January 2025, crypto hacks drained $87.25M.
Crypto Hacks Drain $86M in January Signifying 13.25% Surge in Comparison with December
The $86M loss across crypto market in January 2026 in hacks highlights a modest 1.42% year-over-year (YoY) dip in comparison with January 2025’ $87.5. Even then, when it comes to the monthly change, this figure underscores a noteworthy 13.25% increase when compared with December 2025. In that month, the hackers drained up to $75.95M. So, this rise points toward the persistent vulnerabilities that the blockchain and DeFi ecosystems are facing while the exploiters keep leveraging technical social engineering tricks and technical flaws.
The market data also reveals that 5 platforms have gained the top positions when it comes to losses in crypto exploits throughout January. Leading the list, Step Finance has suffered a staggering exploit of up to $28.9M. Following closely, Truebit Protocol has gone through an exploit of nearly $26.4M.
Apart from that, SwapNet has gained the 3rd top rank among the top exploits of January. In particular, it has lost almost $13.3M, showing a considerably lower amount as compared with Step and Truebit. After that, denoting approximately half of it, Saga reportedly endured a $7M value in exploit damages in January. Moreover, Maina went through an exploit of $4.13M, although it remained effective in recovering $2.7M of the stolen funds’ $2.7M.
Exploiters Successfully Steal $300M in Phishing Schemes with Evolving Tactics
According to PeckSheldAlert, while the crypto market is making continuous expansion, hackers keep stealing capital with their evolving tactics. In this respect, phishing attacks have remained the top category, accounting for a stunning $300M just in January 2026. Overall, the growing losses in crypto exploits display a grim picture while investors face risks amid the widespread deceptive schemes and technological vulnerabilities.
