March crypto hacker losses surge to $52 million, USR collapse triggers a chain reaction

Gate News message: In March 2026, cryptocurrency hacker attacks surged sharply, with 20 major incidents causing losses of more than $52 million—nearly double February’s $26.5 million. According to PeckShield data, this marks a renewed rise in the level of market threat after it hit a low point in December last year.

The most severe incident occurred at Resolv Labs. A Chainalysis report said the attackers breached its cloud infrastructure, gained access to AWS Key Management Service (KMS), and resulted in 80 million unsecured USR tokens being illegally minted—triggering a sharp plunge in USR. Ultimately, the hackers stole roughly $25 million worth of Ethereum. In addition, the USR crash led to bad debts for multiple companies, including Fluid, Morpho Blue, and Euler Finance, spreading across the broader crypto ecosystem.

In March, the attack methods showed a diversified trend, including physical threats and social-engineering attacks. Pseudonymous trader Sillytuna faced a kidnapping threat at the beginning of the month, with losses of about $24 million, while a social-engineering attack targeting a holder of a certain CEX account resulted in losses of about $18 million. Venus Protocol (XVS) recorded total bad debts of $2.15 million that month, indicating new security challenges facing holders of high-value crypto assets.

In the first quarter of 2026, total cryptocurrency losses have already exceeded $164 million. Attack methods have shifted from purely online theft to mixed attacks and offline threats, underscoring the importance of personal and institutional security. Experts noted that investors need to improve their security awareness and adopt measures such as multi-signature setups, cold-wallet storage, and strict identity verification to deal with an increasingly complex threat landscape.

Against the backdrop of frequent hacker activity, short-term volatility increased for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major crypto assets. The market is paying close attention to crypto security and asset protection strategies—especially among holders of high-value tokens.