The cryptocurrency market suffered a theft of $68.3 million in May, marking a nearly 90% decrease from the previous month.

On June 1, blockchain security firm CertiK released data showing the cryptocurrency industry suffered roughly $68.3 million in total losses during May 2026 due to hacks, exploits, and scams—an nearly 90% plunge from the over $650 million lost in April. This marks the third month this year that crypto-related security losses have stayed under $100 million, per CertiK’s analysis. CertiK broke down May’s losses: about $2.6 million came from phishing attacks. By contrast, April’s massive losses were driven by major breaches targeting the Drift Protocol and KelpDAO infrastructure, which cost approximately $285 million and $292 million respectively—making up roughly 95% of April’s total losses. Those two events pushed April to one of the worst months for crypto security losses since March 2022. While large-scale protocol exploits have tapered off, CertiK flagged growing risks from other threats: phishing, social engineering scams, deepfakes, and credential leaks are all on the rise. Researchers note attackers are increasingly targeting employees, operational systems, and identity verification processes, rather than solely exploiting smart contract vulnerabilities. CertiK emphasized that May’s drop in losses reflects the absence of mega-scale security incidents, not a fundamental improvement in the industry’s overall security posture. Major risks still facing cryptocurrency players include cross-chain bridge vulnerabilities, protocol flaws, insider threats, and social engineering attacks.