Crypto Bridge Hacks Top $340 Million in 2026 as PeckShield Sounds the Alarm
— By Tony Rabbit in Markets
PeckShield warns that cross-chain bridge attacks have drained $340.7 million across 14 major exploits in 2026, led by the $292 million KelpDAO LayerZero hack.
Blockchain security firm PeckShield issued an alert on June 1, 2026 highlighting the severity of cross-chain bridge attacks, which have quietly become the most punishing problem in crypto this year. According to the firm, hackers have drained a cumulative $340.7 million from cross-chain bridge protocols through 14 major exploits so far in 2026, a figure that underscores how a single class of infrastructure keeps absorbing outsized losses.
The pattern is unmistakable. Bridges dominate the list of the year's worst incidents, with losses ranging from small drains of a few million dollars to a single attack worth $292 million. As more value moves between chains, the contracts that hold that value in transit have turned into the richest target in the ecosystem, and PeckShield's warning is a reminder that the trend is not slowing down.
What PeckShield Is Warning About
PeckShield tracks on-chain exploits and publishes regular tallies of stolen funds. Its June 1 alert pulls those numbers together to make one point clearly: cross-chain bridges have become the most targeted infrastructure in crypto. The $340.7 million drained through 14 separate bridge exploits in 2026 is not the result of one catastrophic failure but a steady drumbeat of attacks against a recurring weak point.
For context, the firm's figures sit inside a much larger problem. The total amount of crypto stolen across all categories in 2026 has been estimated at around $2.1 billion, according to reported estimates. Bridges account for a meaningful slice of that, and they do so while representing only a fraction of the total smart contracts deployed on-chain.
The Biggest Bridge Exploits of 2026
The single largest exploit of the year so far was the KelpDAO and LayerZero incident on April 18, which drained $292 million. That attack alone represents the overwhelming majority of the year's bridge losses and stands as one of the most severe events in recent DeFi history.
It was preceded by another major loss. Drift Protocol suffered a $285 million hack on April 1, 2026, making the early-April window one of the most damaging stretches the sector has seen. Two enormous incidents within about two weeks of each other set the tone for the year and helped push the cumulative tally where it sits today.
Recent Incidents Keep Adding Up
The attacks have continued through the spring. Gravity Bridge lost $5.4 million on May 30 after its signing keys were suspected of being compromised, a reminder that the systems controlling a bridge can be just as vulnerable as the smart contract code itself. Earlier in the month, TransitFinance, a DEX cross-chain aggregator, lost $1.88 million on May 13.
The TAC Cross-Chain Layer built on TON lost $2.8 million in another incident on the list. Individually these are smaller than the headline events of April, but together they reinforce PeckShield's central observation: bridges keep getting hit, across different chains, different designs, and different attack vectors, with no single fix in sight.
What Is a Cross-Chain Bridge?
A cross-chain bridge is a piece of software that lets you move assets from one blockchain to another. Because a token on Ethereum cannot natively exist on Solana or TON, a bridge typically locks your tokens on the first chain and issues a matching representation on the second chain. When you want to move back, the representation is burned and the original tokens are unlocked.
That design is genuinely useful, but it means bridges must hold large pools of locked liquidity while transfers are in flight. Those pools are exactly what attackers are after. The mechanism that makes bridges convenient is the same mechanism that makes them a magnet for theft.
Why Bridges Are Such a Frequent Target
Three factors make bridges stand out as targets. First, locked liquidity: bridges concentrate value in a small number of contracts, so a single successful exploit can pay out tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Second, complex smart contracts: bridges have to reconcile the rules of two or more independent blockchains, and that complexity creates more surface area for bugs and logic errors.
Third, signing key risk. Many bridges rely on a set of validators or multisignature signers to authorize transfers between chains. If those keys are stolen or mishandled, an attacker can approve fraudulent withdrawals without ever breaking the underlying code, which appears to be what happened in the Gravity Bridge incident. Together, these factors explain why bridges punch so far above their weight in the year's loss totals.
How to Stay Safe
None of this is financial advice, but there are practical habits that reduce exposure. Always verify the official URL of any bridge before connecting a wallet, since fake bridge front ends are a common way to steal funds. Bookmark the real site rather than relying on search results or links shared in chats.
Favor bridges that are audited and time-tested over brand-new protocols that have not yet been stress-tested by the market. A bridge with a long track record and public security reviews is generally a safer choice than an unproven one offering aggressive incentives. It is also worth doing your own homework on the tokens and protocols involved, and tools like DEXTools can help you research a token's contract and trading activity before you bridge anything across chains.
Finally, avoid keeping funds idle inside bridge contracts. Bridges are designed to move assets, not to store them. Once a transfer completes, withdraw to a wallet you control rather than leaving value parked in the bridge, where it remains exposed to any future exploit.
Bottom Line
PeckShield's June 1 alert puts a hard number on a problem the industry already sensed: cross-chain bridges are the most targeted infrastructure in crypto, with $340.7 million drained across 14 exploits in 2026. The $292 million KelpDAO and LayerZero hack and the $285 million Drift Protocol loss show how quickly a single weak point can turn into a nine-figure disaster. Until bridge designs and key management mature, users moving assets between chains should treat security as a personal responsibility and act accordingly.