Cybercriminals stole a staggering $2.7 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025, setting a new record for crypto-related thefts. This marks the third consecutive year that the volume of stolen digital assets has reached an unprecedented high, according to leading blockchain-monitoring firms.

Throughout 2025, dozens of crypto heists targeted various cryptocurrency exchanges, Web3 platforms, and decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. The most significant incident was the breach of Dubai-based crypto exchange Bybit, where hackers siphoned approximately $1.4 billion in crypto. Both blockchain analysis firms and the FBI have attributed this massive heist to North Korean government-backed hackers—a group widely recognized as the most prolific perpetrators of crypto theft in recent years.

The Bybit incident now stands as the largest known crypto loot of all time, and one of the most substantial financial heists in human history. Prior to this, the largest crypto thefts involved $624 million from the Ronin Network and $611 million from the Poly Network, both occurring in 2022.

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 an additional $700,000 stolen from individual crypto wallets. Separately, De.Fi, a Web3 security firm running the REKT database that tracks crypto thefts, corroborated the $2.7 billion estimate for last year.

As in previous years, North Korean government hackers proved to be the most successful crypto thieves throughout 2025, reportedly stealing at least $2 billion of the total. Chainalysis and Elliptic estimate that Kim Jong Un’s hackers have plundered around $6 billion in cryptocurrency since 2017, using these illicit funds to finance the country's sanctioned nuclear weapons program.

Beyond the Bybit breach, other notable crypto hacks in 2025 included:

  • A $223 million theft from Cetus, a decentralized exchange.
  • A $128 million loss from Balancer, a protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain.
  • Over $73 million stolen from the crypto exchange Phemex.

The relentless pace of cybercriminals targeting crypto exchanges and DeFi projects shows no signs of abating. In 2024, hackers stole $2.2 billion in crypto, following $2 billion in thefts in 2023, underscoring a worrying upward trend in digital asset crime.