The first half of 2026 will go down as the most brutal correction the decentralized finance industry has ever seen; but not for the reason most people expected.

Forty-plus protocols have officially shut down. Over $770 million has been drained in hacks. April 2026 is now the most-hacked month in crypto history by number of incidents. Almost none of these collapses are fraud-driven, like Celsius, FTX, and Terra; instead, they are a mix of business-model failures, security-driven insolvencies, and consolidation casualties. These are legitimate companies, with real users, raised venture capital, and shipped products, simply running out of runway.

Welcome to the Great Protocol Attrition — a structural purge that’s quietly…