Key Notes
- Makina Finance lost $4.2 million to hackers.
- The protocol’s TVL rose 20.5% despite the notable attack.
- Makina advised its liquidity providers to remove their assets.
Makina Finance, a decentralized finance execution engine based on Ethereum, was exploited early on Tuesday, Jan. 20. Nevertheless, this protocol that automates advanced risk-managed investment strategies, like yield farming, for asset managers, AI agents, and funds, still recorded strong performance.
Multiple blockchain security platforms, including TenArmor, flagged the attack on X.
🚨TenArmor Security 🚨
Our system has detected a suspicious attack involving #Makina Finance @makinafi on #ETH, resulting in an approximately loss of $4.2M.
It appears that the Makina's DUSD/USDC CurveStable pool was drained!
Attack transaction: https://t.co/wvTPzkMLP1… pic.twitter.com/qUaDF5mxWA
— TenArmor (@TenArmor) January 20, 2026
TenArmor wrote that Makina Finance lost roughly $4.2 million to hackers draining its DUSD/USDC CurveStable liquidity pool.
This technically means that anyone providing liquidity to the affected Curve pool is exposed. Normally, liquidity providers share losses when a pool is drained.
Almost three hours after TenArmor flagged the hack, Makina Finance posted on X that only the DUSD Curve pool had been affected and advised the liquidity providers to withdraw their assets.
Gmak, early this morning we received reports regarding an incident with the $DUSD Curve pool
At this stage, the issue appears to be isolated to DUSD LP positions on Curve. There is currently no indication that other assets or deployments are affected.
Underlying assets held in…
— Makina (@makinafi) January 20, 2026
The cross-chain DeFi execution engine added that the “security mode has been activated across all Machines” until the issue is addressed.
When a protocol activates security mode across all contracts, it means that the team is still investigating and trying to prevent further damage.
Makina Recorded Notable Gains
Despite the multi-million-dollar hack, Makina Finance recorded notable gains.
According to data from DeFiLlama, Makina’s total value locked rose by 20.5% over the past 24 hours, reaching $100.47 million.
The protocol, which was launched in late September 2025, also collected just over $128,000 in fees over the past day, marking a new all-time high.
It’s essential to note that anyone interacting with Makina Finance should exercise caution until the team’s investigation is complete, regardless of the platform’s gains.
In 2025, the total amount of crypto assets lost to fraudulent actors reached $4 billion, with hacks taking up just over $3 billion. Bybit’s $1.5 billion hack led the charts as the biggest loss of the year.
Most recently, on Jan. 10, attackers stole $282 million from multiple crypto wallets and have already sent $63 million to Tornado Cash, a popular digital asset mixer.
