Crypto losses reach $3.4B by 2025: Chain analysis
Crypto hackers have targeted large crypto entities and private crypto wallets this year, resulting in $3.4 billion worth of crypto losses in 2025 – the highest since 2022.
In the year Three hacks, led by the $1.4 billion hack of crypto exchange Bybit in 2025, accounted for 69 percent of losses from January to early December, a Chinalysis report released on Thursday found, with the largest attacks being thousands of times more common than usual.
Andrew Fierman, head of national security intelligence at Chinalysis, told Cointelegraph that while large-scale attacks have boosted this year's losses, it's unclear whether 2026 will unfold the same way.
“It is difficult to predict that it will be even worse in 2026, because abductions are very exaggerated – one or two big abductions can set records for a year. But what I can say is that this big game hunting trend seems to be continuing, and there is no reason to believe that abductions will decrease next year,” he said.
Wallet and private key agreements are popular targets.
Meanwhile, Fierman says on the opposite end of the spectrum, personal wallets have also become a popular target for hackers.
They will represent 7.3% of the total value stolen in 2022 and 44% in 2024. This year it is around 20%, but ignoring the Bybit hack the total would have been closer to 37%.
However, even though the number of incidents tripled compared to 2022, the total amount stolen in 2024 dropped to $713 million from $1.5 billion in 2024.
“These amounts are smaller because individual wallets hold less money than larger wallets that aggregate multiple users' money,” Fierman added.
DeFi protocols have adopted more effective security measures.
DeFi's total locked-in value is around $119 billion, according to analytics platform Defillama, more than doubling from 2023 lows to just under $40 billion.
However, Chinalysis said that the recovery in DeFi markets has not led to an increase in hacks, which represents a “clear departure from historical trends”.
Previously, money laundering areas of the industry tended to be more hacked. However, in this case, Chainalysis suggests that DeFi protocols implement more effective security measures and that attackers turn their attention to wallets and central services as much as possible.
“While millions of dollars have been plowed back into these protocols, the persistently low DeFi hacks indicate a meaningful shift,” the Chinalysis team said.
North Korea is getting more complicated.
North Korean hackers were responsible for $2.02 billion in stolen cryptocurrency in 2025, up from a total of $681 million in 2024, through methods such as embedding IT workers in projects.
The study found that North Korean hackers will have carried out fewer but more damaging attacks by 2025. Chinalysis points to an increase in sophistication and patience with a focus on scoring big points.
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“The regime is training and developing new methods for Web3 operators to implement their strategies, whether by infiltrating IT staff or finding exploitable access points through third-party vendors,” Fierman said.
“With each hack, the industry learns more about the DPRK's tactics, and strengthens security measures to address future threats. The DPRK is also evolving, continually seeking to find new attack vectors to give the regime a return on their ill-gotten gains.”
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