KuCoin Highlights Rising DeFi Crisis With 32 Price Manipulation Attacks
TL;DR
- KuCoin and other DeFi platforms are grappling with a 2026 marked by 32 price manipulation exploits, a historical record according to TRM Labs.
- The most prominent case was the Tectonic exploit on August 30: an attacker inflated the price of TONIC roughly 100 times in 20 minutes and borrowed approximately $75 million.
- Price manipulation now accounts for one in every eight crypto hacks, up from one in every 17 in 2022. Some $972 million was stolen in the first half of the year.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) is going through its worst year in terms of security, particularly regarding price manipulation. According to TRM Labs data, 32 exploits of this type were recorded during 2026, more than in any previous full year. That figure is crucial considering that DeFi is a sector where exchanges like KuCoin and lending protocols accumulate tens of billions of dollars in locked value, and where code security is no longer enough to protect users.
One of the most controversial cases occurred recently, on August 30, when an attacker manipulated the price of the TONIC token, the governance token of the Tectonic protocol, built on Cronos. In approximately 20 minutes, the price was inflated roughly 100 times. The attacker deposited that asset as collateral and borrowed approximately $75 million in liquid assets. In the week prior to the exploit, TONIC had recorded just $305,000 in trading volume. The amount extracted was equivalent to roughly 245 times that weekly volume.
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