Crypto price-manipulation exploits have reached 32 in 2026, according to blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, exceeding the total for any previous year. The attacks typically involve artificially inflating an illiquid token, pledging it as collateral, borrowing more liquid assets, and abandoning the collateral after its price collapses. Price manipulation now represents about one in eight crypto hacks, compared with one in 17 in 2022, while its share of stolen value has stayed relatively flat. TRM Labs said the pattern suggests attacks may be cheaper and easier to repeat, with flash loans providing readily accessible capital. The expanding lending market has increased the potential pool of assets at risk: DefiLlama lists more than 570 lending protocols, whose combined total value locked rose about 56% over two years to almost $50 billion, while active loans nearly doubled to about $29 billion. Recent incidents include more than $70 million initially drained from Tectonic after TONIC's price was inflated 100x in around 20 minutes, although a Cronos rollback reduced the attacker's gain to about $6 million, and roughly $8.7 million taken from Moonwell through manipulated MAMO oracle prices. Users can suffer losses through bad debt even without owning the targeted token. Recovery depends on remaining pool assets and whether operators can freeze addresses, reverse transactions, or negotiate with attackers. A May last year ruling involving Mango Markets also highlighted legal difficulties, after a U.S. judge vacated Avram Eisenberg's fraud and manipulation charges because prosecutors had not shown the case should be tried in New York; prosecutors have appealed. Governance conflicts add risk when a protocol accepts its own token as collateral and the same decision-makers set risk parameters, exposing both the protocol and users seeking predictable lending yields.