The rapid evolution of AI tools has created a new threat to smart contracts, as hackers can now find vulnerabilities in codebases at an unprecedented rate. According to CertiK, the crypto industry lost $1.32 billion across 344 incidents in the first half of 2026.
CertiK's report highlights that attacks on smart contracts older than one year are increasing, indicating a systematic return by attackers to legacy codebases. Experts are urging projects to move from one-time audits to regular security reviews.
Ari Redbord, TRM Labs Head of Policy, stated that 'attack methods evolve faster than an audit conducted on launch day can account for.' The industry should shift to continuous monitoring rather than relying on one-time checks.
Anthropic's study found AI agents' ability to find and exploit smart contract vulnerabilities has improved significantly. On a dataset of vulnerabilities from after the model's knowledge cutoff, results improved from 2% to 55.88% over the year. The cumulative value of successfully simulated exploits grew from $5,000 to $4.6 million.