The cryptocurrency industry faced a severe security crisis in January 2026, with total losses from theft and exploits approaching $400 million. Data from blockchain security firms CertiK and PeckShield reveals a stark contrast between protocol hacks and user-targeted attacks.
According to CertiK, 40 recorded incidents resulted in approximately $370.3 million in losses. When including a late-month $30 million exploit of the Solana-based platform Step Finance, the adjusted total climbs to over $400.3 million. PeckShield's separate analysis, focusing on protocol hacks, reported 16 incidents totaling $86.01 million, marking a 13.25% increase from December 2025.
The defining feature of the month was the overwhelming dominance of phishing and social engineering scams, which accounted for roughly $311.3 million of the total losses. A single, devastating phishing attack on January 16 resulted in a lone investor losing $284 million—representing about 71% of the month's adjusted losses. The attacker, impersonating Trezor customer support, manipulated the victim into revealing a recovery seed phrase, leading to the theft of 1,459 Bitcoin (BTC) and 2.05 million Litecoin (LTC).
The aftermath of this massive theft saw a significant portion of the stolen assets converted into the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero (XMR), triggering a rally in its market price and highlighting regulatory challenges around privacy coins for illicit capital flight.
On the protocol side, the largest direct code exploit was against Truebit, which suffered a $26.6 million loss due to an overflow vulnerability. Other major protocol breaches included Step Finance ($28.9M), Swapnet ($13M), Saga ($6.2M), and Makina Finance ($4.2M). The Step Finance breach, occurring on January 31, involved draining several treasury and fee wallets via a "well-known attack vector," moving 261,854 SOL.
The data indicates a strategic shift by attackers, who are increasingly targeting individuals with sophisticated social engineering—using deep fake audio, video, and AI-generated messages—rather than solely focusing on complex smart contract vulnerabilities. The figures serve as a stark reminder that user-level security remains a critical vulnerability, even with robust hardware encryption.
