Crypto exchanges lost $2.4 billion to hacks in just over a year, 71% came from a single incident

Here’s a breakdown of the largest exchange exploits from January 2025 to February 2026.

On the CEX side, losses exceeded $2.0 billion. The Bybit hack in February 2025 alone accounted for $1.46 billion. That’s 71% of total CEX losses. The remaining top 5 CEX exploits were Binance ($300M, linked to the October 10 crash), Bitget ($100M), Nobitex ($90M), and Phemex ($80M). The most common point of failure? Compromised private keys, with 3 of the top 5 hacks originating from social engineering and UI-phishing attacks.

DEX exploits were significantly smaller in comparison. Cetus led at $223M, followed by Balancer ($128M), GMX ($42M), Hyperliquid ($17M), and SwapNet ($13.5M). The primary attack vector for DEXs was smart contract vulnerabilities.

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Source: https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/cex-dex-trading-activity-report-2026