XEPian

When crypto hacks make the news, most of the attention goes to how much was stolen and how the attackers pulled it off. But there's another side to these numbers that deserves attention. The chart shows that North Korea-linked attacks accounted for around 15% of total crypto hack losses in 2021. By October 29, 2026, that figure had climbed to nearly 89%. Losses attributed to the DPRK have gone from roughly $500 million in 2021 to around $7.6 billion so far in 2026. What concerns me more than the amount stolen is how much of the damage is now coming from one source. Total hack losses are going up, but an increasingly large share is being linked to the same state-backed actor. That makes it hard to look at crypto security as just a technical problem. Auditing code and fixing smart contract vulnerabilities are still important, of course. But that's only part of it. Private keys need to be protected, employees can be targeted, operational security matters, and stolen funds need to be tracked. All of these things have become just as important as finding flaws in the code. And this isn't about a single hack or a one-time incident. It's a threat that has been around for years and keeps getting bigger. I think the industry needs to take a different approach to security. Preventing exploits in individual protocols is no longer enough. Crypto needs to be better prepared for organized attacks backed by state-linked actors.