Three months before the year’s close, 2025 is emerging as one of the darkest years yet for the cryptocurrency industry. Criminal groups and hackers have siphoned off $2.34 billion from digital asset platforms and investors—already surpassing last year’s tally by 35 percent—even as the overall number of scams has dropped sharply.
The paradox underscores a sobering reality: scams are becoming fewer but far more sophisticated, with single attacks now capable of inflicting more damage than dozens of smaller ones.
Data compiled by the analytics firm CryptoPresales.com shows that reported scams and thefts have fallen by half this year, even as the total amount stolen has soared. That makes 2025 the third costliest year on record for crypto crime, trailing only 2021 and 2022, when losses reached $2.73 billion and $3.54 billion.
One incident alone accounted for nearly 60 percent of this year’s losses. In February, hackers drained $1.46 billion from Ethereum wallets held by Bybit, a Dubai-based exchange. While the company has not disclosed who was behind the breach, cybersecurity researchers say the scale and precision of the theft bore hallmarks of North Korea’s Lazarus Group, long accused of financing the country’s weapons program through cybercrime.
The broader trend is equally alarming. In 2023, scammers carried out a record 283 attacks, stealing $1.74 billion. The number of incidents fell by a third to 187 last year, with roughly the same losses. This year, the count has plunged to just 83 reported cases—the lowest since 2020. But the average haul per heist has ballooned.
“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, Dubai-based centralized exchange Bybit was hit by an attack that stole record-breaking $1.46 billion from its ETH cold wallets. The attack, rumored to have been carried out by North Korea’s Lazarus Group, is the largest crypto crime on record.”
The cumulative toll is staggering. Since the early days of Bitcoin, criminals have stolen more than $15 billion across some 1,100 reported heists, according to industry tallies. Nearly 80 percent of that total has been taken in the last five years alone. If the stolen tokens had been held rather than laundered or liquidated, their value today would exceed $50 billion.
For regulators and the crypto industry alike, the trend poses a renewed challenge. Governments have tightened rules around exchanges, and blockchain analytics firms have grown more adept at tracing stolen funds. Yet cybercriminals remain a step ahead, exploiting vulnerabilities in emerging protocols and overwhelming firms’ defenses.
With the year not yet over, analysts warn that 2025 could still set a new record.