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Dragonfly says DeFi hacks are declining despite AI fears
Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi pointed to a drop in the median hack size to below $500,000 in 2026, down from over $2 million in 2025.
Fears that artificial intelligence would trigger a wave of catastrophic decentralized finance hacks, dubbed a “hackpocalypse,” have not materialized, Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi said, according to Cointelegraph.
Qureshi argued that while the number of incidents has risen to a record high, the median size of hacks has fallen to below $500,000 in 2026, compared with over $2 million in 2025. He said this pattern suggests AI-assisted attackers are focusing on smaller protocols and abandoned projects, while larger DeFi platforms have strengthened defenses.
Cointelegraph reported that Qureshi also said that after excluding outlier months involving major incidents such as the Bybit hack in February 2025, plus exploits at Drift Protocol and KelpDAO earlier this year, 2026 has still seen less value hacked per month than the prior year.
The comments came as Cointelegraph noted concerns raised by OpenZeppelin founder Manuel Aráoz, who said he considers all of DeFi unsafe due to AI coding agents’ ability to find smart contract vulnerabilities. Separately, Cointelegraph cited DefiLlama data showing April crypto hacks produced losses of about $644 million, an over one-year high, while it also cited CertiK’s view that lower headline dollar losses do not necessarily mean Web3 is safer.