Crypto Theft Hit Nearly $400 Million in January 2026
The crypto trade’s safety challenges reached a vital level in January 2026. A surge in refined phishing assaults and treasury breaches drained roughly $400 million from the ecosystem.
Data from blockchain safety agency CertiK reveals that 40 recorded incidents price the crypto trade roughly $370.3 million.
Single $284 Million Phishing Attack Dominates
However, that determine climbs to over $400.3 million when accounting for a $30 million exploit of the Solana-based platform Step Finance on January 31.
CertiK reported {that a} singular, devastating social engineering rip-off, quite than advanced protocol hacks, outlined the month.
A lone investor lost $284 million on January 16 after a phishing marketing campaign concentrating on a {hardware} pockets. The theft represented roughly 71% of the month’s adjusted complete losses.
The attacker, impersonating Trezor buyer help, manipulated the sufferer into revealing a restoration seed phrase. The heist resulted in the speedy theft of 1,459 Bitcoin and a couple of.05 million Litecoin.
The speedy aftermath of the Trezor-related heist noticed an enormous rotation of stolen assets into Monero (XMR), a privacy-focused token that obscures transaction historical past.
This high-volume conversion triggered a rally in Monero’s market worth. The worth motion underscores the persistent challenges regulators face in addressing the use of privacy coins to facilitate illicit capital flight and cash laundering.
On the technical aspect, smart contract vulnerabilities proceed to take a major chew out of the market. Truebit reported a $26.6 million loss as a consequence of an overflow vulnerability, the month’s largest direct assault on a protocol’s code.
Other notable victims included Swapnet, which misplaced $13 million. DeFi protocols Saga and Makina Finance additionally misplaced $6.2 million and $4.2 million, respectively.
The Step Finance breach concerned draining a number of treasury and payment wallets by way of a “well-known assault vector,” ensuing in the motion of 261,854 SOL.
As the trade enters February, these figures function a stark reminder that even essentially the most sturdy {hardware} encryption is ineffective when user-level safety is bypassed.
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