Cybercriminals are off to a strong start in 2025. In just the first half of the year, 290 security incidents resulted in the loss of nearly $2.5 billion in crypto assets – already surpassing the total losses recorded in all of 2024, according to a new report from CertiK.

🔓 Wallet Breaches and Phishing Attacks Lead the Damage

The largest losses came from direct attacks on users: $1.7 billion was stolen in just 34 wallet breach incidents. Phishing campaigns followed, draining more than $410 million across 132 attacks. Rounding out the top three were code vulnerabilities, responsible for over $283 million in losses from 114 cases.

Though less frequent, exit scams and price manipulation still caused nearly $20 million in damage. Another $42 million was lost due to compromised access controls.

📉 First-Half Losses Surpass All of 2024

Total losses for the first six months of 2025 have already exceeded the $2.42 billion recorded in all of 2024. After subtracting recovered and frozen funds, net losses stand at $2.29 billion, up from $1.98 billion in adjusted losses last year.

A staggering 72% of this year’s losses stem from just two major incidents – a large-scale attack on Bybit in Q1 and the exploitation of the Cetus protocol in Q2. Without these two, the half-year losses would amount to a more modest $690 million.

📊 Quarterly Breakdown: When and How the Money Disappeared

🔹 Q1 2025 – Losses totaled $1.67 billion, heavily influenced by the Bybit breach

🔹 Q2 2025 – Attacks slowed, but still caused $801 million in damage

Phishing emerged as the dominant threat vector in Q2, causing $395 million in damage from 52 attacks. Next were code vulnerabilities ($235.7 million) and access control weaknesses ($36.1 million). Wallet compromises, the main threat in Q1, caused an additional $112 million in Q2 from just 9 incidents.

⚠️ Most Notable Hacks of the Year So Far

In addition to the Bybit and Cetus breaches ($225.6 million), other high-impact events included:

🔹 Nobitex (Iran) – Losses of $89.1 million

🔹 ALEX Lab – Breach worth $16.1 million

🔹 Further issues with Bitopro, Cork Protocol, KiloEx, and zkSync, mostly due to smart contract bugs, compromised infrastructure, or stolen wallet credentials

🧠 Ethereum Targeted Most, Bitcoin Second

Ethereum was the top target, suffering over $1.58 billion in losses across 164 incidents. Bitcoin followed with $373 million lost from just 10 cases.

🔄 What Got Recovered?

So far, $187 million has been returned to victims – $180 million of that during Q2 alone. Even after subtracting the recovered funds, the first-half losses of 2025 still represent an all-time high.

🧩 Another Analysis Supports the Trend

A separate mid-year report from TRM Labs estimated $2.1 billion in losses across 75 incidents, primarily due to private key thefts, front-end hijacks, and other infrastructure breaches. While figures may vary slightly, the message is clear – crypto security threats are escalating rapidly in 2025.




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