BitMEX closure reveals crypto risk moved to DeFi hacks

Earlier this year, BlockFills, a firm with more than 2,000 institutional clients, paused client deposits and withdrawals in February as prices fell, saying it was working to restore liquidity. That pause did not lead to a bankruptcy filing.

TRM Labs recorded 207 crypto hacks in the first half of 2026, the highest six-month count in its data, more than double the 83 incidents in the same period last year. Losses fell to about $972 million from $2.3 billion over that same stretch. Smart contract exploits drove most of the incident count, and infrastructure and operational compromises like the KelpDAO theft accounted for a disproportionate share of the dollar losses. On Apr. 18, Chainalysis linked the roughly $292 million KelpDAO theft to North Korea's Lazarus Group and traced it to compromised internal RPC nodes, DDoS attacks on external nodes, and false data fed into a verification system.

Bitcoin peaked near $126,000 in October 2025, and trades around $64,884 as of July 23, a decline of roughly 48%. Prior completed cycles fell further before finding a bottom: roughly 84.7% in 2013-2015, 83.7% in 2017-2018, and 77.1% in 2021-2022, according to Bitcoin.com's drawdown tracker. A 50% drawdown can still deepen, and historical drawdown bands describe past cycles without predicting when this one ends.

Centralized exchanges are learning to close for ordinary business reasons, without a shortfall or a freeze behind the headline. The BitMEX closure shows that. The money moving through code has not matched this cycle. Six months produced 207 hacks and $972 million in stolen funds.