This Risk Cost Crypto Investors More Than $600 Million in April. Could It Send Prices Tumbling?

In the first 24 days of April, crypto protocols lost more than $606 million to hacks and exploits, making it the worst month for theft since the Bybit breach that led to the theft of $1.4 billion in February 2025. This time around, two separate attacks accounted for 95% of the damage, one of which took place in one of Solana's (CRYPTO: SOL) ecosystem projects on April 1, and the other of which was in one of Ethereum's (CRYPTO: ETH) ecosystem projects on April 18. Both are linked to North Korea's notorious Lazarus Group hackers, and neither was the result of a code bug or aggressive cyberintrusion, but rather the fruit of months-long shaping operations which combined social engineering with otherwise-legitimate actions on the respective protocols.

For holders of these coins, as well as for others directly affected by the hacks, like Aave (CRYPTO: AAVE), the fallout has sparked vast sums of capital stored in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to flee to safety. Could that send prices down further from here, or is the damage contained?

Image source: Getty Images.

Break-ins make everyone in the neighborhood feel unsafe

First, let's get some perspective.

Take a look at this chart showing some cryptocurrency price action over the past 30 days:

Solana Price data by YCharts

As you can see, the sky is not falling for the chains where the hacks happened, but for those harmed the most directly by the capital fleeing DeFi, specifically Aave, the damage is considerable, and it's mostly due to a loss of trust. Over the initial 48 hours after the attack, more than $8.4 billion in deposits fled Aave, and total DeFi total value locked (TVL) across all protocols dropped more than $13 billion. The DeFi picture for Ethereum and Solana is not necessarily sunny, either; both networks saw the total capital in their DeFi protocols drop substantially over the course of the month, with Ethereum losing $1.6 billion to outflows on April 24 alone.

More importantly, the hacks are happening during a time when investor pessimism about the worthiness of DeFi in general, both as a rationale for investment and as a set of valuable financial tools, is very much in vogue. So these attacks likely prompted investors who were on the fence to bug out.

What to take from the wreckage

It's still worth buying Ethereum and Solana at this juncture.

Neither Ethereum nor Solana was compromised at the chain level; their third-party projects were the issue, and the security breaches were contained rather than widespread. Hacks have always happened in crypto, and they probably will continue to occur for the foreseeable future. Moreover, hack-related dips have historically been buying opportunities.

So for now, the most practical takeaway here is to keep your coins custodied by a financial institution, or in cold wallets, rather than deposited in DeFi protocols. These chains will adapt, and even if prices fall a bit, they'll likely eventually recover.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Aave, Ethereum, and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.