Morning Edition · Sunday, July 19, 2026Published at 1:27 AM EDT · New York
Fresh On-Chain Exploits and Malware Arrests Keep DeFi and Wallet Losses Grinding Higher
Overnight proof-of-concept filings recorded a roughly $201,000 reserve-manipulation drain on BNB Chain, plus access-control and allowance-sweep bugs on Optimism and Ethereum. US authorities separately charged a student over $220,000 stolen through malware-infected Steam games.
Smaller exploits continued to accumulate overnight. The DeFiHackLabs repository, which publishes reproducible proof-of-concept code for real incidents, added a case for CrowdRingCircle on BNB Chain, a reserve-manipulation exploit of about $…
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Bridge and Mint Exploits Sustain Heavy DeFi Losses
Over 3-6 months, recurring bridge proof-validation and unauthorized-mint exploits keep monthly DeFi losses elevated, including drains of deprecated contracts.
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