DeFi Exploits Surge in 2026 As Market Loses $137M in 3 Months

The year 2026 has seen several staggering exploits across the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector up till now. Hence, over just the 3 months, the DeFi market has lost a notable $137M amount on fifteen platforms. As per the data from Top 7 Crypto, Step Finance, Truebit, and Resolv have emerged as the leading DeFi platforms among 2026’s exploits. In addition to this, other prominent names include SwapNet, YieldBlox DAO, Saga, Makina, IoTeX, Aperture, and Venus.

DeFi Exploits 2026 – $137M+ Already LostSince January, hackers have drained over $137M across 15 protocols – and only $9M has been recovered. The attack vectors tell a familiar story: compromised private keys, smart contract bugs, oracle manipulation, and reentrancy. The same… pic.twitter.com/nqg4hIaR7S

— Top 7 Crypto | Analytics & Alpha (@top7ico) March 23, 2026

Step Finance Dominates 2026’s DeFi Exploits with $27.3M Loss

Leading the list of 2026’s top DeFi exploits is Step Finance. Particularly, the platform lost a huge $27.3M in its exploit. In this respect, the compromise of a private key reportedly led to this attack. Subsequently, Truebit has occupied the 2nd position as it incurred a $26.2M loss in its exploit that occurred due to a smart contract glitch.

Apart from that, when it comes to the loss of value in DeFi exploits during 2026, Resolv stands in the 3rd position. The platform lost a total of more than $25M. Specifically, a minting vulnerability paved the way for this exploit. In addition to this, SwapNet became the 4th of DeFi entities losing massive capital amounts. So, it lost a cumulative $13.4M due to an arbitrary call.

The next name on the list is YieldBlox, which is the 5th among this year’s leading DeFi exploits up till now. Thus, an oracle manipulation resulted in this exploit, draining an overall $10.97M amount. Additionally, Saga has emerged as the 6th top DeFi exploit. In line with the market data, it incurred a $7M loss as a result of a validation failure.

Venus Bottoms List with $3.7M Loss

Moving on, Top 7 Crypto’s list of DeFi exploits of 2026 adds Makina in the 7th place. The project lost $5M because of price dependency. Coming after that, IoTeX also became one of these DeFi exploit victims. It lost $4.4M in a private key compromise. Next is Aperture, which incurred a $3.7M loss due to an unvalidated user input. Concluding the list is Venus, facing a $3.7M loss led by a supply capitalization manipulation.