Cybercriminals stole $2.7 billion in crypto this year, a new record for crypto-stealing hacks, according to blockchain-monitoring firms.
Once again, in 2025, there were dozens of crypto heists hitting several cryptocurrency exchanges and other web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. The biggest hack by far was the breach at Dubai-based crypto exchange Bybit, where hackers stole around $1.4 billion in crypto. Blockchain analysis firms, as well as the FBI, accused North Korean government hackers — the most prolific group targeting crypto in the last few years — of this massive heist.
This was the largest known loot of crypto of all time, and one of the largest financial heists in the history of humanity. Before the Bybit hack, the largest crypto thefts netted $624 million and $611 million for hackers in the 2022 breaches against the Ronin Network and the Poly Network, respectively.
Cryptocurrency-monitoring firms Chainalysis and TRM Labs both estimated a total of $2.7 billion stolen in crypto in 2025, per data shared with TechCrunch. Chainalysis also tracked another $700,000 stolen from individual crypto wallets, the company said.
De.Fi, the web3 security firm running the REKT database that tracks crypto thefts, also estimated $2.7 billion in stolen and hacked crypto last year.
As usual, North Korean government hackers were the most successful crypto thieves throughout 2025, after stealing at least $2 billion, according to Chainalysis and Elliptic, which estimated that Kim Jong Un’s hackers have stolen around $6 billion since 2017. North Korea uses crypto thefts to fund its sanctioned nuclear weapons program.
Other significant crypto hacks this year included the one against Cetus, a decentralized exchange, which netted the hackers $223 million; the breach against Balancer, a protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain, which resulted in a loss of $128 million; and the one against the crypto exchange Phemex, where cybercriminals stole more than $73 million.
Cybercriminals targeting crypto exchanges and other DeFi projects are not slowing down. In 2024, hackers stole $2.2 billion in crypto, while the year before, in 2023, the total was $2 billion.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai is a Senior Writer at TechCrunch, where he covers hacking, cybersecurity, surveillance, and privacy.
You can contact or verify outreach from Lorenzo by emailing lorenzo@techcrunch.com, via encrypted message at +1 917 257 1382 on Signal, and @lorenzofb on Keybase/Telegram.
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