Hacken, Blockchain Security & Compliance

Hacken was built to make Web3 a safer place. Nine years in, that mission looks very different from where it started. It started with whether code holding digital assets was secure. That question has not gone away. But now it’s a part of a much more complex list of requirements: governance, cybersecurity, continuous monitoring, and regulatory compliance across dozens of articles at once. The reason requirements grew is visible in where the institutional capital is pointing. Major banks and consultancies project that blockchain will become a structural layer of public financial markets. They also name that barriers to broader adoption are trust and regulatory clarity, rather than technology.  That alone signals how much has changed: the crypto of 2017 and the digital asset industry of 2026 are not the same thing. Hacken's solutions have expanded with each new requirement the market placed on digital assets: from smart contract audits in 2018 to establishing institutional trust with solutions for licensing, market entry, AI, resilience frameworks, CORE3 risk intelligence, crypto yield audit, and risk score today. More than 2,000 blockchain entities have gone through that process with us. Nine years later, the architecture of trust in digital assets is still being built. This piece is our read on where it goes next 👉 https://lnkd.in/dXRGe7g8

Passing an audit and earning institutional trust are no longer the same thing. $764M lost in Q2 2026. Most of it traced to compromised keys, signers, and infrastructure — not code. The conventional safety signals didn't hold. On August 6, Hacken is hosting a live panel on what the architecture of institutional trust actually looks like now, and where conventional safety signals keep falling short. Panelists: - Marat Faritov, VP Digital Assets, Moody's Ratings - Dmytro Y., Head of GRC & Security Operations, Hacken - Denys Ivanov 🇺🇦 Ivanov, Chief Product Officer, Hacken Moderated by Bryn Bennett, Head of Business Strategy, Hacken Topics: DORA compliance gaps, capital allocation shifts toward continuously verified counterparties, and quantum cryptography risk in institutional credit assessments. Worth attending if you work in security, compliance, asset management, or are evaluating digital asset risk at an institutional level. August 6 | 13:00 UTC | Online Register: https://lnkd.in/dRxDjVSP

The Trust and Security framework for Agentic DeFi is live. Developed by Owney in collaboration with Hacken, CORE3, and CODESPECT on the first Agentic DeFi Yield framework across Security, Risk, and Robustness to make failure paths measurable. The framework scores each agent from 0 to 10 using observable evidence. It reviews architecture and permissions, allocation and exposure controls, monitoring, data and oracle dependencies, and how user funds are isolated. For fund managers, protocols, neobanks, and institutional allocators, the framework strengthens confidence, trust, and security when allocating to Agentic DeFi yield strategies.

NIS2 has become a deal-blocker. Regulated buyers in finance, energy, and healthcare are pushing NIS2 supply-chain security obligations down to their vendors — in writing, in the contract. If you can't evidence it, procurement stalls. Hacken's NIS2 readiness services get you from applicability to evidence-ready in weeks: → Scope check: know if NIS2 applies to you in 2 weeks → Gap assessment: control-domain gaps, maturity scores, prioritized roadmap → Audit readiness: full evidence pack for regulators and buyers → Enterprise readiness: multi-country group programmes Built on the same in-house team running MiCA, DORA, EU AI Act, Cyber Resilience Act, and GDPR engagements. ISO 27001:2022 certified. Your next RFP probably has a NIS2 clause in it. Get started: https://lnkd.in/d-sEcksv

AI has not triggered a DeFi "hackpocalypse". 88% of Q2 losses came from compromised keys, weak infrastructure, and human error – the fundamentals that have always mattered. Stephen A. Ajayi, Hacken's lead offensive security engineer, puts it plainly: the hype is ahead of the incident data. But the capability curve is catching up. Cointelegraph digs into what the data actually shows, and what to watch heading into H2. Read: https://lnkd.in/etUFBBvy

Two regulatory regimes reached decisive points in Q2 2026 – through different mechanisms. In the EU, MiCA's transitional period ended on July 1. Less than 1 in 5 pre-registered firms made it to full authorization. In the US, the GENIUS Act's one-year rulemaking deadline expires July 18, requiring six federal agencies to finalize the first federal stablecoin rulebook. Both events reflect the same condition: the governance layer of digital-asset regulation is moving faster than the operational security practice it is meant to ensure. New edition of the Digital Assets Compliance Compass breaks down what changed, what's still unresolved, and what compliance and security teams need to understand before Q3 👇

Get your copy of the Hacken Q2 2026 Security and Compliance Report. $763.9M was stolen across 67 incidents, marking the costliest quarter for digital asset security since Q2 2025. Operations, meaning access control, key management, and signer infrastructure, remain the most damaging category on the ledger, accounting for 88% of losses. At the same time, smart contract vulnerabilities were the most common root cause, 44 of 67 incidents, roughly two-thirds of the total. Yet they account for only 11% of the funds stolen. Against this backdrop, MiCA implementation is underway, with approximately 20% of firms that declared intent securing authorization, representing roughly 210 of more than 1,200 applicants. This quarter's report is built around one idea, the Architecture of Trust: how security, compliance, and risk intelligence together influence which teams institutions are willing to work with. Inside the report: ▪️ MiCA/DORA and the GENIUS Act ▪️ Stablecoin regulations ▪️ AI regulation across the EU and US ▪️ How allocators run due diligence ▪️ What it means for what comes next in Q3 2026 Hacken researchers see the same trend confirmed by the report's contributors: the old trust metrics are no longer sufficient to prove that a counterparty is safe, nor do they provide continuous protection for the party presenting them. As digital assets become more exposed to public markets, the allocation of institutional capital increasingly depends on the continuous provision of verifiable evidence that the asset issuer remains safe and sound in its risk management. Built with perspectives from Chainlink Labs, Bybit, Moody's Ratings, 1Money, Sui Foundation, Stellar Development Foundation, Abraxas Capital Management, Howden, EisnerAmper, DA Insured, SVRN, and Allium. Get your copy of the report: https://lnkd.in/d7EC4nrE

Turning a Web3 product into a durable company takes more than a strong pitch. Founders need capital, security support, market access, and operators who understand the path from launch to scale. Hacken is joining 10X Founders Demo Day v2.0 as a co-host on August 25. Selected teams will compete for $150K+ in prizes and gain access to grants, investment, audit credits, accelerator support, market-making opportunities, and media exposure. Applications are open ➡️ luma.com/mie9hpvt

Security teams are still writing AI policies. Attackers are already testing MCP tool access. When an AI agent can use tools, it becomes a user inside your architecture. And not always one that understands boundaries. 8 risks every team deploying MCP should understand, from prompt injection to local server compromise 👇