Crypto Hacks Skyrocket to $766M in September, 462% Jump from August

In September 2026, the cryptocurrency industry was hit with 55 major hacking attacks, resulting in total losses of $766.49 million, a 462% increase from August's losses of $136.3 million. According to PeckShield, the bulk of the losses came from two incidents: the Bitget hack and the bitcoin outflow from the Liquid Network.

The Bitget hack was the largest episode, with estimated losses of around $388 million. Initially, the exchange confirmed an unauthorized withdrawal of $351.6 million in assets, but later raised the estimate to $387.5 million after additional transactions on the Zcash and TRON networks were taken into account. The attacker moved funds out of the platform's hot and warm wallets across several networks, but private keys were not compromised, according to Bitget and independent specialists.

Analysts suggested a possible link to North Korean hackers, but there is no definitive attribution. After the incident, Bitget used its Protection Fund to cover losses and later replenished it to more than $300 million. The company stated that user balances were not affected.

The second-largest incident was the withdrawal of about 4,000 BTC from the Liquid Network. On September 6, assets worth roughly $320 million were moved out of the federation wallet. The suspected cause was a bug in the Elements software, rather than a compromise of network participants' keys. After the incident, operators temporarily shut down bridge nodes and effectively halted the sidechain. The party controlling the funds described itself as 'ethical hackers' and opened communication with Blockstream via on-chain messages.

As early as September 8, it returned 3,400 BTC worth about $268 million. At that time, about 598.5 BTC remained under its control. The incidents involving Bitget and Liquid Network alone accounted for more than 90% of the total September figure.