Dragonfly partner Haseeb: The DeFi "hacker apocalypse theory" has not come true, with an estimated annual theft amount of about 1.89 billion dollars in 2026

Dragonfly partner Haseeb responded on Twitter to OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Aráoz's previous pessimistic view on DeFi security, stating that with models like GLM 5.2, Fable, and GPT 5.6 now online and actively used by attackers, DeFi has not experienced the anticipated "hacker apocalypse."

Chart data shows that based on current year-to-date figures and operating rates, the annualized amount stolen in DeFi by 2026 is approximately $1.89 billion, with a cumulative theft of about $986 million this year, which is lower than the levels of 2025 and still within historical ranges.

Haseeb believes that the deeper change currently is that while the number of hacker attacks has increased, the scale of individual attacks has decreased more rapidly, with attackers increasingly targeting smaller protocols and abandoned projects, while larger protocols have completed more security enhancements, thus the overall safety of funds has not significantly worsened.