Crypto lost $1.26 billion in hacks while bitcoin bulls enjoyed a monster quarter

Bitcoin BTC$83,893.48 closed the third quarter up 40%, outrunning every major asset even as Treasury yields climbed to their highest in more than two decades. Investors poured billions of dollars into exchange-traded funds tied to BTC and other tokens, and several altcoins rallied even harder, leaving analysts convinced a new bull run has arrived.

Yet amid the rally, one familiar stain on the industry's image kept spreading. That’s hacks and exploits. The money lost in these incidents is small next to the billions flowing into ETFs, but the damage to crypto's reputation is harder to wave away.

Crypto suffered 247 security incidents in the third quarter, with losses totaling $1.26 billion, according to data tracked by crypto security firm CertiK. Losses for the year so far stand at $2.68 billion. September was the worst month yet, with 99 incidents, the most since February 2025, and $768.5 million stolen, the largest monthly haul of 2026.

"Yes, it is bad optics," Nicolai Sondergaard, senior research analyst at Nansen, told CoinDesk. "The reputational damage can still be larger than the losses themselves. Repeated exploits reinforce the idea that crypto infrastructure remains operationally fragile, which can slow institutional adoption, increase scrutiny from regulators and custodians, and make allocators demand a higher risk premium.”

For now, the losses barely register against the capital arriving through ETFs, Sondergaard explained, adding that most institutions are buying crypto through regulated, familiar wrappers and staying away from DeFi protocols altogether.

CertiK said the numbers show how deeply rooted the problem remains.