Manuel Aráoz, co-founder of the crypto security firm OpenZeppelin, has publicly declared that he now considers the entire decentralized finance (DeFi) sector unsafe. The warning stems from his belief regarding the overwhelming imbalance of power between those conducting attacks and those defending protocols.
The Call to Action
In a post made on the social media platform X, Aráoz stated that he has begun advising his personal network—friends and family members—to liquidate all holdings within DeFi. This cautionary advice extends even to lower-risk investments in established protocols widely known as “blue chip” systems, including Aave, MakerDAO, and Compound.
The co-founder emphasized that the fundamental issue lies in the extreme asymmetry of security efforts. He explained that “coding agents are superhuman at finding vulnerabilities,” adding that smart contract security is inherently uneven. According to Aráoz, while defenders must diligently patch every identified bug, attackers only require a single exploit to steal substantial amounts of funds.
Recent Security Breaches and Market Data
These highly critical comments come amid escalating concerns regarding the safety of DeFi protocols, fueled by numerous major breaches reported in recent months. Historical data highlights a significant decline in market confidence and security stability.
Exploits During April 2026
- According to data compiled by The Block, approximately $630 million was stolen from DeFi protocols throughout April, marking the worst month for hacks and exploits since February 2025.
- The theft in April was compared to the massive incident at Bybit in February 2025, when the exchange suffered a hack totaling roughly $1.5 billion.
Two notable incidents occurred during that period: The Drift protocol experienced an exploit totaling $285 million, which investigators traced back to a six-month social engineering scheme. Separately, Kelp DAO was targeted in a cross-chain bridge vulnerability, resulting in a loss of $293 million. Both attacks have been widely linked by analysts to hackers backed by North Korea’s state.
Market Trends and May Activity
The overall health of the sector appears strained, reflected in declining Total Value Locked (TVL). DeFi TVL has decreased by about 14% since mid-April, falling from an estimated $172 billion down to approximately $148 billion.
May itself has recorded 25 separate DeFi exploits so far. Key incidents in May include the exploitation of Verus Network’s Ethereum bridge for $11.6 million. Furthermore, the prediction market platform Polymarket disclosed a security breach last week involving $573,200, which was potentially linked to a private key compromise related to an internal wallet used for top-up operations.
