protocols

According to data from DefiLlama, in the first quarter of 2026, hackers stole over $168.6 million in crypto assets from 34 decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, a significant decrease from $1.58 billion during the same period in 2025, when the high losses were mainly due to the $1.4 billion theft incident from Bybit.The largest single attack this quarter was the private key leak incident at Step Finance in January, resulting in a loss of approximately $40 million; followed by the attack on Truebit due to a smart contract vulnerability on January 8, resulting in a loss of $26.4 million in Ethereum; and third was the private key theft incident at stablecoin issuer Resolv Labs on March 21.

SolanaFloor's latest data shows that the impact of the Drift protocol vulnerability incident continues to expand, with the number of affected protocols increasing from 11 to 20. Nine new protocols have been added: PiggyBank, Perena, Vectis, Valeo, Amp Pay, Loopscale, Prime Numbers Fi, Gauntlet, and Exponent.In terms of specific losses, Prime Numbers Fi estimates losses of over $10 million, Gauntlet approximately $6.4 million, Neutral Trade about $3.67 million, Elemental DeFi around $2.9 million, Reflect Money about $1.95 million, Vectis approximately $1.69 million, Ranger Finance around $919,000, Pyra about $551,000, and PiggyBank has confirmed losses of $106,000, which will be fully compensated by the team.Each protocol has taken corresponding measures, with most suspending minting, redemption, deposits, withdrawals, or related treasury functions. Prime Numbers Fi is still under evaluation and has not announced specific actions. Vectis has not responded but has been confirmed by Ranger Finance to have risk exposure. Gauntlet has restricted further supply and is coordinating with Drift.

According to official news, Gate has officially launched the USDT staking AAVE-Plasma protocol and the USDC staking AAVE V3 (ARB) protocol products. Users can participate in staking with a minimum of just 1 USDT or 1 USDC, allowing them to earn on-chain returns with one click. The current reference annualized yield is as high as 3.23%.It is reported that USDT and USDC staking are Gate's on-chain staking products, allowing users to participate in decentralized liquidity markets through the AAVE-Plasma and AAVE V3 (ARB) protocols, thereby obtaining real on-chain returns. Earnings will be automatically distributed to accounts daily in the corresponding tokens, and users can redeem at any time.

At the "Build and Scale in 2026" themed forum recently held by ChainCatcher in Hong Kong, Spark co-founder Sam MacPherson delivered a keynote speech on "The Growth Engine of DeFi," systematically explaining how Spark builds an integrated solution to address the fragmentation and inefficiency of on-chain capital markets by integrating savings, lending, and institutional-level capital allocation.Sam MacPherson pointed out that the current on-chain capital market still faces challenges of severe fragmentation and low capital utilization efficiency. Spark builds its growth engine through three core products: first, the all-chain savings account Spark Savings, which has managed over $2.75 billion in deposits, providing users with a safe and stable income entry; second, the lending protocol SparkLend, which focuses on blue-chip assets and captures value by reducing external protocol commissions and protocol fees; third, institutional lending in collaboration with the Anchorage custodian, seeking risk-adjusted returns between DeFi, CeFi, and traditional finance.He believes that the next phase of DeFi's growth will rely on integrated protocols that can seamlessly integrate multi-chain liquidity, provide institutional-level risk control, and possess sustainable token economic models. Spark is promoting the evolution of DeFi towards a more efficient and robust direction through its product matrix and ecosystem development.

According to official updates, SUN.io has announced the completion of a new upgrade to its smart routing system, officially introducing the Universal Router and Permit2 protocols. After the upgrade, users can complete optimal path exchanges across multiple liquidity pools such as SunSwap V1/V2/V3, Curve, PSM, and HTX-SUN in a single transaction. At the same time, through Permit2's one-time high-limit authorization and signature validity period and limit mechanism, it significantly reduces the energy consumption costs of repeated authorizations and enhances security.The official Tron mainnet Permit2 and Universal Router contract addresses have been disclosed, reminding users to interact with the contract addresses disclosed by the official source to securely enable a more efficient trading experience.

MultiversX announces a collaboration with OpenAI and Stripe to support its Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP), providing infrastructure for AI-driven on-chain transactions. ACP is an open standard that allows AI agents to complete product discovery, purchasing, and payment within a chat interface, without the need for wallet operations or paying Gas fees.MultiversX has implemented support for ACP through an open-source adapter and introduced the Relayed v3 protocol, offering native Gasless transaction capabilities, allowing users to complete transactions without holding EGLD.Additionally, MultiversX supports Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), covering the entire shopping process from product discovery to post-sale support. Combined with the upcoming Supernova upgrade (which achieves sub-second finality), MultiversX lays the groundwork for automated work contracts and decentralized value chains between AI agents. This integration enables AI agents to execute transactions seamlessly, driving the development of a machine-to-machine economy and providing new financial infrastructure for both on-chain and off-chain ecosystems.

a16z Crypto published a long article on platform X stating that the timeline for the emergence of quantum computers capable of breaking cryptocurrencies (CRQC) is often exaggerated, and the likelihood of their appearance before 2030 is extremely low. The risk status of different cryptographic primitives varies.Post-quantum encryption needs to be deployed immediately due to the "harvest now, decrypt later" (HNDL) attack. In contrast, post-quantum signatures and zkSNARKs are less susceptible to HNDL attacks; migrating too early could bring risks such as performance overhead, immature implementation, and code vulnerabilities. Therefore, a cautious rather than hasty migration strategy should be adopted.For blockchains, most non-privacy public chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum primarily use digital signatures for transaction authorization, so there is no HNDL risk. The pressure to migrate mainly comes from non-technical challenges such as slow governance, social coordination, and technical logistics.Bitcoin faces unique issues, including its slow governance speed and the existence of millions of quantum-vulnerable tokens worth hundreds of billions of dollars that may be abandoned. In contrast, privacy chains, due to their encryption or concealment of transaction details, do face HNDL attack risks and should transition as soon as possible.a16z Crypto emphasizes that in the coming years, implementation security issues such as code vulnerabilities, side-channel attacks, and fault injection attacks are more urgent and significant security risks compared to the distant threat of quantum computers. Developers should prioritize investment in code audits, fuzz testing, and formal verification.

The blockchain infrastructure company TenX Protocols announced that it will be listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) under the ticker symbol "TNX".The company has completed over 33,000,000 CAD (approximately 24,000,000 USD) in financing this year, which includes 29,900,000 CAD in subscription receipt financing related to the public listing and 3,500,000 CAD in seed round financing. TenX stated that it will use these funds to purchase tokens from high-throughput blockchain networks such as Solana, Sui, and Sei, and participate in staking, while also investing in its own infrastructure products and services. Part of the financing was conducted through digital assets (including SOL, SEI, and USDC) at a price of 0.75 CAD per subscription receipt.

According to DL News, the circulation of PayPal's stablecoin PYUSD has surged by 224% since September, surpassing $3.8 billion, making it the sixth largest stablecoin.The DeFi protocol Ethena has become the largest holder of PYUSD, holding $1.2 billion through the custodian Copper. PayPal is providing incentives on the decentralized exchange Curve Finance by partnering with liquidity management company Sentora, and subsidizing user yields for DeFi protocols.The Solana lending protocol Kamino currently offers nearly 6% annualized yield for lending PYUSD, partially subsidized by PayPal. Over the past three months, the scale of PYUSD on Solana has increased from $250 million to over $1 billion.U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen expects the stablecoin market to reach $3 trillion by 2030.

According to a report by theblock, the total locked value (TVL) of Ethena's synthetic stablecoin USDe has dropped from $14.8 billion in October to the current $7.6 billion, a decline of over 50%.The sharp decline is mainly due to the liquidation of a large number of leveraged loop strategies emerging in DeFi protocols, particularly in lending markets like Aave. Currently, the yield of USDe (around 5.1%) has fallen below the borrowing cost of 5.4% for USDC on AAVE, leading some participants to close their positions.The report states that despite the decrease in TVL, the usage of USDe is on the rise, with on-chain transaction volume exceeding $50 billion last month, indicating that even as speculative positions are gradually unwound.

According to DefiLlama data, the total value locked (TVL) in lending protocols across the network is currently reported at $68.342 billion, a decrease of $11.96 billion from $80.302 billion.During the same period, the total market capitalization of stablecoins also saw a significant decline: a decrease of 0.71% in the past week, with a market cap reduction of $2.17 billion.

Blockchain security company BlockSec posted on social media that Balancer and several forked protocols have been attacked. The losses are as follows:Balancer on Ethereum chain lost $70 million;Balancer on Base chain lost $3.9 million;Balancer on Polygon chain lost $117,000;Beets on Sonic chain lost $3.4 million;Balancer on Arbitrum chain lost $5.9 million;Beethoven on Optimism chain lost $283,000.

ChainCatcher news, analyst Eye posted on the X platform revealing the Bunni hacker. She stated that this hacker has attacked 14 protocols including Equilibria, BSX, DFX Finance, and Curve, and in many cases, after launching attacks, she would deplete the entire liquidity of various protocols, leading to their collapse. This hacker acts recklessly and ruthlessly, mocking the futures of many people, including users' funds and the funds of various teams.Eye pointed out that this attacker has extensive connections in the crypto industry and is linked to venture capital firms. She believes she is untouchable due to her alibi, and she has thousands of online aliases. It is time for her to pay the price. Previously, it was reported that the decentralized trading protocol Bunni announced today its official shutdown due to security vulnerabilities and insufficient funds.

ChainCatcher news, the Monad Foundation announces the official launch of the MON token airdrop plan, targeting five major user groups: Monad community members (largest proportion), on-chain active users (including DEX traders, DeFi protocol participants, and NFT holders), a broad range of cryptocurrency community members, cryptocurrency contributors (security researchers and educators), and Monad ecosystem builders.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, cryptocurrency prime broker Project 0 is integrating the Solana ecosystem DeFi protocol Kamino.This collaboration will enable users to manage risk, collateral, and capital efficiency across multiple DeFi applications. Users can now borrow and lend using a single credit pool, leveraging their deposits in Kamino and Project 0. This credit pool can seamlessly integrate cross-platform loan-to-value (LTV), borrowing weights, and interest rate data with a single click. This move also introduces a unified margin account, allowing users to access leveraged trading opportunities without the need to manage multiple sets of collateral.