Crypto platforms lost about $6.5 billion to hacks, exploits and scams in October, and almost all of it came from one incident. Two security firms published their monthly tallies over the weekend, and both show the Binance hot-wallet breach dwarfing everything else on the list.
PeckShield said the industry suffered 56 major hacks in October with total losses of $6.48 billion, “a ~745% month-over-month increase from September’s $766.49M.” CertiK’s security dashboard puts October at $6.50 billion across 92 incidents, and attributes $6.29 billion, or 96.7% of the month, to Binance.
Take Binance out and October looks quiet
The headline figure hides an unusual month. Subtract Binance and PeckShield’s remaining October losses come to roughly $180 million by our calculation ($6.48 billion minus about $6.3 billion), spread across the other 55 incidents. CertiK’s figures leave about $210 million ($6.50 billion minus $6.29 billion). On PeckShield’s own numbers, that is less than a quarter of the $766.49 million it recorded for September.
CertiK’s breakdown by attack type makes the same point. Wallet compromise, the category that covers the Binance breach, accounts for $6.44 billion, or 99% of October losses. Smart contract exploits were the most common type of incident, with 45 of the 92 cases, but they added up to just $25.1 million. Phishing was $3.5 million.
Beyond Binance, the largest October incident on CertiK’s list is a drainer campaign aimed at Ledger users, which it puts at $99 million. PeckShield’s list puts what appears to be the same campaign, which it calls the CryptoBills Ledger drainer, at $93 million. CertiK’s next-largest entries are CoinDCX at $16 million, then 79th Vault and Axis Robotics at about $12.5 million each.
Gross losses versus what is actually gone
Both firms report gross figures first, and that matters this month more than most. Binance has said about $3 billion of the stolen assets was frozen on-chain within days of the attack. CertiK’s adjusted loss for October, which nets out frozen and returned funds, is $3.47 billion, about $3.03 billion below its gross figure.
Even the adjusted number is the largest monthly total in CertiK’s dashboard series, which starts in January 2023. The previous high was $1.60 billion in February 2025, the month Bybit was hacked.
For Binance customers the gross number matters less than it looks, because the exchange has said it will cover the shortfall from its own funds. The FBI has attributed the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group. Even if all $3 billion of frozen assets were recovered, the remaining loss of about $3.3 billion, by our calculation, would be more than eight times the $387 million Bitget incident that PeckShield ranks second this year.
2026 is now the worst year on record
The October total pushed the full year past every previous one, according to CertiK. “With ~$9.2B in losses, 2026 now has the highest losses on record,” the firm said. PeckShield’s year-to-date figure is lower, at $8.6 billion. The two firms track and classify incidents differently, so their totals do not match.
PeckShield said its ten largest hacks of the year make up 92.3% of that total, before frozen and returned funds are taken into account. Binance is first at about $6.3 billion, followed by Bitget at $387 million and Liquid Network at $320 million. PeckShield lists $285 million of the Liquid haul as returned; the attacker in that case had claimed to be a white hat.
Without Binance, 2026 looks far less extreme. CertiK’s adjusted monthly losses stayed below $700 million in every month from January to September. The worst of those was April, at $639.7 million, followed by September at $488.2 million.
November opens with a small DeFi exploit
November did not stay clean for long. Early on Sunday, Blockaid flagged an attack on Premia’s vaults on Arbitrum while it was still under way. Blockaid described the method this way: “Created empty option pools, flash-loaned, and bought options so vault collateral locked into those pools, then withdrew it as liquidity.” Its first estimate was about $400,500 drained across two transactions, and CertiK’s dashboard now lists a single November incident of that size.
PeckShield later put the loss at $464,600 and said the exploiter bridged the funds from Arbitrum to Ethereum before swapping them into bitcoin through Chainflip and NEAR Intents. Premia Labs had not commented by Sunday morning UTC; its X account’s most recent post dates from April.
What to watch next
The October totals will keep moving. More of the Binance funds may be frozen or recovered, which would lower the adjusted figure, and monthly counts can be revised as smaller incidents are confirmed. Both firms’ numbers should be treated as early estimates for now.
The more useful signal for DeFi users is the trend once the single outlier is removed. On CertiK’s count, exploits were still the most frequent type of attack in October, and Premia shows that small, fast vault drains have not gone away while attention is fixed on Binance.
FAQ
How much crypto was stolen in October 2026? PeckShield counts $6.48 billion across 56 major hacks, and CertiK counts $6.50 billion across 92 incidents. CertiK’s adjusted figure, after frozen and returned funds, is $3.47 billion.
How much of that was the Binance hack? CertiK attributes $6.29 billion, or 96.7% of October losses, to Binance. PeckShield puts the incident at about $6.3 billion, with $3 billion frozen.
Is 2026 the worst year for crypto hacks? According to CertiK, yes. It counts about $9.2 billion in losses so far this year, the highest on record. PeckShield’s year-to-date total is $8.6 billion.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
