Losses from cryptocurrency scams and thefts have surged past $2.3 billion so far this year, even as the number of incidents has dropped sharply, highlighting how fewer but larger attacks are inflicting deeper damage on the industry.
Criminal groups and hackers have siphoned off $2.34 billion from digital asset platforms and investors in 2025, already 35% higher than last year’s tally, according to data from analytics firm CryptoPresales.com. That makes this year the third costliest on record for crypto crime, behind 2021 and 2022, when losses totaled $2.73 billion and $3.54 billion respectively.
“Since the beginning of the year, there have been 83 reported cases, 2.2 times less than in the entire 2024, and the lowest figure since 2020. However, the total amount of stolen money jumped to $2.34 billion. Nearly 60% of that value was stolen in just one scam,” says the report.
In February, hackers drained $1.46 billion from Ethereum wallets held by Dubai-based exchange Bybit. While the company has not said who was responsible, cybersecurity researchers said the scale and precision of the breach bore hallmarks of North Korea’s Lazarus Group. The attack, CryptoPresales.com noted, was “the largest crypto crime on record.”
The broader trend has shifted toward fewer but higher-value incidents. In 2023, scammers carried out 283 attacks, stealing $1.74 billion. That figure fell to 187 last year, with roughly the same losses. This year, the number has plunged to 83 cases—the lowest since 2020—but the average haul per heist has ballooned.
One incident alone accounted for nearly 60% of this year’s total losses, underscoring the rising professionalism of cybercriminal groups that often target decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, centralized exchanges, and large investor pools.
The cumulative toll is mounting. Since the advent of Bitcoin, more than $15 billion has been stolen across some 1,100 reported heists, industry data shows. Nearly 80% of those losses have come in the last five years. If the stolen tokens had been held rather than liquidated, their value today would exceed $50 billion.
For regulators and exchanges, the trend poses a fresh challenge. Governments have tightened oversight, while blockchain analytics firms have grown more adept at tracing funds. Still, cybercriminals continue to exploit new protocols and weak points in infrastructure, often outpacing defensive efforts.
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