Crypto exploit losses jump 10x in April as attacks shift from frequent to catastrophic

April saw a dramatic spike in crypto exploit losses, exceeding $633 million and more than ten times March’s ~$59.5 million. Two large breaches — Kelp DAO and Drift Protocol — together accounted for roughly $576 million, with Drift alone losing over $280 million. The concentration of losses in a few infrastructure-level attacks (cross-chain bridges, governance/privileged access) increased systemic stress across lending markets and forced platforms like Aave to pause markets and coordinate recoveries. The shift from numerous small incidents to rarer, catastrophic failures raises counterparty, liquidation and bad-debt risks across DeFi and poses downside pressure on market confidence and liquidity.