Makina exploit adds to growing list of DeFi attacks in early 2026

Makina, a DeFi protocol, suffered an exploit on 20 January, resulting in the loss of over $4 million. 

Makina’s recent exploit has added to a growing list of DeFi security incidents recorded in the opening weeks of 2026, reinforcing concerns that familiar attack vectors continue to scale alongside capital inflows.

Makina exploit: what happened

On 20 January, Makina disclosed an exploit affecting liquidity providers in its DUSD/USDC Curve pool, resulting in estimated losses of around $4.2 million, according to incident summaries and security reports.

The team said the attack was isolated to the USDC side of the Curve pool and did not impact users holding DUSD, Pendle, or Gearbox positions, nor funds held within Makina’s Machines.

Makina and Dialectic were alerted in the early hours of the incident. The protocol’s Security Council activated recovery mode, pausing all Machines in coordination with SEAL911 and external auditors. 

Hypernative alerts flagged suspicious activity one block before the exploit, which was ultimately executed by a second address identified as an MEV bot.

Makina said it has identified the root cause and taken steps to prevent further losses. Also, it is pursuing recovery efforts, including engagement with addresses linked to the exploit. 

Snapshots of the affected pool have been taken, with affected liquidity providers [LPs] advised to withdraw single-sided to DUSD while recovery continues.

A full post-mortem is expected once investigations are complete.

January 2026: a familiar pattern of DeFi exploits

Makina’s incident is one of several notable protocol-level exploits recorded so far this year. While the underlying attack methods vary, most losses stem from logic errors, configuration risks, or legacy contract assumptions, rather than novel exploit techniques.

Among the largest incidents reported in January:

• Truebit [8 January]: Approximately $26 million was lost due to a flaw tied to legacy bytecode and bonding-curve mechanics, making it the largest exploit of 2026 so far.
• YO Protocol [13–14 January]: Roughly $3.7 million was drained in what was described as a slippage-related exploit or operator-level misconfiguration.
• TMXTribe [early January]: About $1.4 million was lost due to a logic bug within the protocol.

Smaller incidents were also reported across the sector, though many involved limited losses or user-side wallet compromises rather than core protocol failures.

Losses concentrated in a handful of incidents

While more than half a dozen security events have been reported since the start of the year, total losses remain heavily concentrated in a small number of exploits. 

Truebit alone accounts for a significant share of reported losses, with Makina and YO Protocol forming the second tier of impact.

This concentration suggests that, while exploit frequency remains elevated, systemic risk is still driven by a few high-impact failures rather than widespread protocol failures.

Final Thoughts

• Early 2026 exploits show that familiar DeFi failure modes are persisting, with losses driven by scale rather than new attack techniques.
• Makina’s incident underscores the importance of MEV-aware design and rapid-response frameworks as protocol complexity increases.