According to blockchain intelligence firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis, Grinex is a rebranded version of the Garantex cryptocurrency exchange that was shut down and sanctioned in March 2025. Two of its operators were subsequently criminally charged in the US.
Russian Grinex exchange halts trading after $13 million+ exploit
The Russian cryptocurrency exchange Grinex has halted trading after disclosing a hack of more than 1 billion rubles (more than $13 million). The exchange has claimed on Telegram that the hack was perpetrated by "foreign special services" they allege were trying to harm Russian financial independence.
CoW Swap users lose estimated $1.2 million after DNS hijacking
Users who visited the website for the CoW Swap DEX aggregator on April 14 were unknowingly redirected to a malicious website that drained their crypto wallets. An attacker was able to socially engineer CoW Swap's domain registrar, allowing them to redirect visitors to a malicious site for a period of several hours. CoW Swap has estimated that people who used the service during that time lost around $1.2 million.
- "POST MORTEM: Cow.fi Domain Hijack", CoW DAO
Users lose $9.5 million to fake Ledger wallet app on the Apple App Store
After a fake version of the Ledger cryptocurrency wallet app made it onto the normally highly curated Apple App store, customers lost $9.5 million dollars to the malicious product. Believing it was a genuine Ledger product, people entered their seed phrases into the app, then discovered their wallets were immediately drained.
One victim, a musician who goes by G. Love, wrote: "I lost my retirement fund in a hack/Scam when I switched my Ledger over to my new computer and by accident downloaded a malicious ledger app from the Apple store. All my BTC gone in an instant." According to him, he lost 5.9 BTC (~$445,000).
Crypto sleuth zachxbt traced some of the stolen funds through Kucoin, a Chinese cryptocurrency exchange that was recently fined and forced to exit US markets over licensing and anti-money laundering failures. "The three largest victims lost seven figures each," he wrote.
Apple removed the malicious app from their App Store on April 13, six days after it had been added.
Hyperbridge exploited two weeks after April Fools' hack joke
On April Fools' Day, the Hyperbridge blockchain bridge project posted a tweet claiming that the North Korean Lazarus hacking group had drained $37 million from the project. A linked blog post contained a Rickroll GIF and an explanation of "Why Hyperbridge can't be hacked".
The following day, a Hyperbridge developer posted a screenshot of a blockchain transaction, writing "Lmao the uniBTC exploiter is testing Hyperbridge. I hope you have a quantum computer bro". Another commenter replied, "Rule #1 dont actively provoke attackers".
About two weeks later, an attacker was able to forge a transaction to change the admin rights for the Polkadot/Ethereum bridge contract, allowing them to mint 1 billion DOT tokens. They were able to cash out about $2,500,000 due to limited liquidity.
The April Fools' posts have since been deleted.
Bitcoin Depot hacked for $3.67 million
Bitcoin ATM operator Bitcoin Depot has disclosed a March 23 hack in which attackers stole 50.903 BTC (~$3.67 million) from company wallets. According to the company's disclosure with the SEC, the exploiters gained access to the company's IT systems and wallet credentials, allowing them to steal the assets.
Bitcoin Depot is the largest operator of crypto ATMs globally and in the United States, with approximately 8,700 kiosks in the US and 9,200 worldwide.
- SEC Form 8-K filed by Bitcoin Depot Inc. on April 6, 2026
- Top Crypto ATM Operators, Coin ATM Radar
Drift exploited for $285 million
The Solana-based Drift defi perpetual futures exchange was exploited for $285 million. The project alerted the community on social media, writing: "Drift Protocol is experiencing an active attack. ... This is not an April Fools joke."
The project later described the exploit as "a novel attack involving durable nonces, resulting in a rapid takeover of Drift's Security Council administrative powers." Once the attacker had access to admin capabilities, they quickly eliminated risk management limits on the protocol and drained huge quantities of tokens, which they swapped to USDC and then ETH. The attack was attributed to extremely sophisticated social engineering, likely by North Korean hackers.
Some have criticized USDC's issuer, Circle, for not freezing the stolen funds during the six hours they were held in USDC. Unlike ETH, USDC is controlled by a centralized company that can, and regularly does, freeze assets determined to have been stolen or connected to illicit activity.
The theft is among the largest in defi history.
USR stablecoin depegs in $24 million exploit
The Resolv USD stablecoin, also known as USR, lost its intended dollar peg and dropped to around $0.14 after an exploiter was able to mint and sell tens of millions of unbacked tokens. USR is an asset-backed stablecoin that uses cryptoassets like bitcoin, ETH, and other stablecoins as collateral.
An exploiter took advantage of a flaw in USR's minting code to create tens of millions of USR tokens without depositing any assets to back them. The attacker then sold the unbacked USR, crashing the stablecoin's price to as low as $0.14. The attacker has profited at least 11,400 ETH (~$24 million), though they are still selling.
Some defi protocols paused USR-exposed strategies to avoid downstream impacts. Resolv issued a statement that the token's collateral pool was unaffected, though this is likely little comfort for those who purchased the unbacked USR.
Venus Protocol accumulates $2.15 million in bad debt after exploit
The BNB Chain's Venus Protocol lending protocol accumulated $2.15 million in bad debt after an exploiter manipulated the price of the Thena protocol's THE token. THE had very low liquidity, and the exploiter took advantage of it to manipulate the THE price oracle by borrowing against THE, using the borrowed funds to buy more THE, and repeating — causing the price oracle to reflect higher and higher prices. The attacker was able to avoid a supply cap on Venus by "donating" the funds rather than depositing them in the standard way.
While the exploit left the Venus Protocol with over $2 million in bad debt, it's not clear if the attacker even made money from the exploit. The exploiter's position was ultimately liquidated, collapsing the increase in THE price. However, it's possible the exploiter took advantage of the price discrepancy elsewhere to profit.
The Venus Protocol has had a number of issues in the past — notably in June 2023, when the team developing the BNB Chain had to intervene when the a thief borrowed $150 million on Venus against stolen tokens and then faced liquidation.
Thief pilfers NFTs priced at $230,000 from Gondi
A thief exploited a smart contract belonging to the Gondi NFT platform to steal 78 NFTs priced at $230,000. Perhaps the most shocking part of the theft is that the attacker managed to find NFTs still holding any value at all. Around half of the stolen NFTs were taken from a single wallet.
According to Gondi, the exploiter took advantage of functionality that allowed users to sell their NFTs to automatically repay loans.
Gondi has said it has reimbursed customers by buying them "comparable items" from the same collections as their stolen NFTs, although it seems questionable that this will satisfy customers who purchased products whose whole selling point is that they aren't interchangeable.
Solv Protocol exploited for $2.7 million
The Solv Protocol bitcoin defi lending and staking platform disclosed an exploit that they said affected fewer than ten users, but nevertheless netted the attacker 38 SolvBTC (a wrapped bitcoin token priced at $2.7 million). Although Solv has not disclosed specifics of the attack, some researchers have suggested it was a bug in the protocol's burn and mint functionality.