June 2026: wave of crypto project hacks exceeds 20 incidents — Taiko loses $1.7 million
June 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most alarming months for the digital asset industry. According to my data, more than 20 successful attacks on various crypto projects have been recorded since the beginning of the month. The latest significant victim is the L2 project Taiko, which lost approximately $1.7 million due to a critical vulnerability in the bridge state verification mechanism.
The Taiko incident is a stark example of how even well-established Ethereum scaling solutions can have fatal flaws in their security architecture. The attack targeted the platform's cross-chain bridges — traditionally one of the most expensive and complex elements of any DeFi infrastructure. Security specialists detected the start of the attack and immediately warned the community about the urgent need to withdraw funds from all bridges deployed on Taiko.
Timeline of the Taiko hack
According to on-chain analytics, the attacker has already begun to withdraw the stolen funds. 1.99 million TAIKO tokens (approximately $189,000) were sent to the MEXC exchange. However, the bulk of the funds — 870.8 ETH (nearly $1.52 million) — still remains at the attacker's address. The Taiko team promptly contacted centralized exchanges with a request to freeze the deposit of TAIKO tokens, offering a chance for partial asset recovery.
The project has published four attacker addresses, allowing market participants to track the movement of funds independently. However, the fate of the stolen assets largely depends on the speed of the exchanges' response and the possibility of blocking flagged wallets.
Overall threat landscape in June
The statistics on hacks in June 2026 are a cause for serious concern. According to aggregators such as DefiLlama, the number of incidents has already exceeded two dozen. This points to a systemic problem: hackers are actively exploiting vulnerabilities in bridges, smart contracts, and verification mechanisms. The market is clearly underestimating the risks associated with cross-chain infrastructure security.
My analysis: June 2026 could go down in history as one of the most "fruitful" periods for hackers. The current wave of attacks is not a coincidence but a natural consequence of the rush by many projects when launching bridges and L2 solutions. I strongly recommend that investors reconsider their risk management strategies: diversifying assets and using only proven, multi-layered security systems are becoming not just a recommendation but a necessity. Until the industry adopts standards for mandatory audits and "bounty programs" with high rewards, such incidents will continue to occur.