DeFi Exploits Reach Record High: Price-Manipulation Attacks on the Rise

The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has seen a surge in price-manipulation exploits this year, with a record 32 incidents reported by KuCoin.

This trend has put DeFi lending into uncomfortable territory, exposing systemic weaknesses that can spill over to liquidity and investor trust across the broader market.

The most extreme exploit occurred on Cronos, the blockchain operated by Crypto.com, where an attacker artificially inflated a thinly traded token's price 100 times in just 20 minutes, enabling them to borrow approximately $75 million from Tectonic, a lending protocol on Cronos.

Regulators have already been scrutinizing DeFi due to its rapid growth and ties to lending, borrowing, and trading without traditional intermediaries. The pressure now falls on protocols to close the gap between innovation and security vulnerabilities.