The cryptocurrency industry has lost over $600 million in April, with KelpDAO and Drift hacks both exceeding $280 million.

April has emerged as one of the cryptocurrency industry’s most devastating months this year, with losses from hacks exceeding $600 million across at least 13 protocols and platforms. Two major incidents—Drift and KelpDAO—account for over $280 million in losses, and several high-profile attacks are linked to a North Korea-affiliated hacker group. Key events follow: - **April 1**: Drift Protocol, Solana’s largest decentralized perpetual contract platform, was hacked for ~$285 million. On-chain activity traced to March 11 (when the attacker withdrew 10 ETH from Tornado Cash) spanned nearly 3 weeks; the exploit took ~12 minutes, with most funds cross-chained to Ethereum via Circle CCTP within hours. It’s Solana’s second-largest security event, behind the 2022 $326 million Wormhole cross-chain bridge hack. - **April 13**: Hyperbridge, a blockchain interoperability protocol, was breached via a cross-chain proof verification vulnerability, losing ~$2.5 million. - **April 16**: Two hacks: Rhea Finance (NEAR ecosystem lending protocol) lost $18.4 million; Grinex (a Russia-linked exchange) lost ~$15 million. - **April 18**: KelpDAO, an Ethereum liquidity rehypothecation protocol, was hacked for ~116,500 rsETH (~$292 million, 18% of rsETH’s circulating supply). The attacker used fake cross-chain messages to trick LayerZero’s EndpointV2 contract’s `lzReceive` function into releasing bridged reserves. This now ranks as 2024’s largest DeFi hack, surpassing Drift.