August brought the highest monthly count of major crypto hacks seen so far in 2026, even as the value stolen fell sharply from the previous month. According to PeckShield, the sector recorded 50 major incidents in August, with combined losses of $136.3 million.

That total was down 49.5% from July, pointing to a month in which attackers struck more frequently but took less money on average. PeckShield’s figures put the average loss per hack at about $2.7 million, compared with roughly $9 million in July.

Hack count rose above earlier monthly peaks

PeckShield’s August tally exceeded the 40 major hacks recorded in each of April, May, and June, making August the busiest month of the year by incident count. While the number of attacks increased, the overall losses were far below the year’s most expensive month.

April still stands as the costliest month of 2026, with $646.89 million in losses. The source article said the Drift and KelpDAO exploits were the main reason for that figure, accounting for a combined $577 million.

Tectonic was the largest August breach

The biggest incident in August hit Tectonic, a lending protocol on Cronos, with losses of roughly $74 million. That single breach represented more than half of the month’s reported total.

According to the source article, the attacker moved about $6 million to Ethereum before validators froze the network. It also said the attacker has since laundered and bridged funds to Bitcoin, with about 200K moved so far. After the attack, Cronos restored the chain state and resumed block production.

Most losses were concentrated in a handful of cases

PeckShield said the ten largest incidents in August accounted for $123.34 million of the month’s $136.3 million in total losses. That left roughly $12.9 million spread across the other 40 hacks, underscoring how heavily the month’s damage was concentrated in a relatively small number of attacks.

Beyond Tectonic, the projects listed among August’s top ten incidents were Moonwell, Term Labs, Coinsbuy, TAC, Injective, MANTRA, BounceBit, Cosmos Labs, and aquifer. The source article did not provide individual loss figures for those cases in the extracted text.

What the August data shows

The August figures suggest a shift in the pattern of crypto exploits rather than a simple improvement in security outcomes. Attackers were linked to more major incidents than in any other month this year, but the average take per incident fell considerably from July.

For now, the confirmed picture is that August set a yearly high for major hack count while remaining well below April in total losses. The next clear step will be whether later monthly tallies show this pattern continuing, or whether another large exploit pushes aggregate losses back up.

Source: beincrypto.com