Binance's AI defense blocked 22.9 million attacks in Q1 2026; smart contract mining costs fell to $1.22 per contract, a 22% month-on-month decrease.
Binance announced on Monday that its AI-powered security systems have prevented over $10.5 billion in user losses between the beginning of 2025 and the end of Q1 2026, equivalent to nearly $700 million per month on Medium . In Q1 2026 alone, these systems blocked 22.9 million scams and phishing attacks, protecting approximately $1.98 billion in user assets.
These figures come as cryptocurrency-related fraud is projected to reach $17 billion in 2025, a 30% increase year-on-year, largely due to AI dramatically reducing the cost and technical threshold for carrying out attacks.
Binance 's internal data clearly reflects this structural shift. The cost of exploiting smart contract vulnerabilities is now only about $1.22 per contract, a 22% monthly decrease, meaning the barrier to entry for cybercriminals is collapsing exponentially.
Advanced AI models achieved a 72.2% success rate in simulated attack scenarios, while 76% of AI-powered scams now fall into the highest risk category. Common attack methods include deepfakes, voice cloning, bot phishing, and identity spoofing on messaging platforms, all of which exploit user trust rather than targeting technical vulnerabilities.
The arms race between offensive and defensive AI.
To address this, Binance stated that by the end of 2025 it had deployed over 100 AI models and 24 security initiatives. These AI systems now handle 57% of the exchange's fraud control mechanisms, contributing to a 60–70% reduction in payment card fraud rates compared to industry standards.
The company also introduced Binance AI Pro, a product that integrates risk control at the architectural level, where assets managed by the AI agent are completely separate from the user's main account, with authority limited to trading and no withdrawal rights.
Additionally, approximately 12% of third-party tools submitted to Binance's app marketplace have been flagged as potentially risky, an alarming rate indicating the extent of attack vector penetration through the software distribution channel.
On the asset recovery side, Binance reported assisting in the recovery of $12.8 million in 48,000 cases in 2025, a 41% increase year-on-year, while also collaborating with authorities to seize $131 million in illegal assets and processing over 71,000 requests from law enforcement agencies.
While these figures suggest improved defensive capabilities, the overall picture remains one of an unending arms race: each defensive improvement triggers a new cycle of adaptation from the offensive side, in an environment where offensive costs continue to decrease while defensive costs relentlessly escalate.
