Scam losses jumped 64% year over year, driven by tailored phishing and impersonation campaigns targeting high-value victims.
Crypto-related scams and hacks drained more than $4.04 billion from users and platforms in 2025, according to data shared by blockchain security firm PeckShield.
The figures point to a clear shift toward targeted social engineering and attacks on centralized players, with scams alone rising far faster than technical exploits.
Scams and Centralized Attacks Drove 2025 Losses
PeckShield said total crypto losses in 2025 rose about 34% from 2024, with $2.67 billion tied to hacks and $1.37 billion linked to scams.
Scam losses jumped roughly 64% year-on-year, outpacing the growth in direct protocol exploits. However, the larger issue was higher per-case losses, often tied to tailored phishing and impersonation campaigns targeting high-value individuals.
More than 200 hack incidents were recorded during the year, excluding scams. February accounted for the largest single-month loss on record after a $1.51 billion breach at Bybit, which PeckShield now ranks as the largest hack in crypto history. The FBI later linked that attack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, detailing their use of malware and social engineering to gain access to Bybit’s cold wallets.
According to PeckShield’s data, attackers also started changing their approach last year. Instead of just targeting decentralized finance (DeFi) systems, they started focusing more on centralized exchanges and large organizations, which made up 75% of the money stolen last year, up from 46% in 2024.
BNB Chain saw the highest number of incidents, while Ethereum accounted for the most dollar value lost due to large targets.
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A Look at Patterns and Recovery
The report also provided context on how the stolen funds were moved. Tracked laundering linked to major exploits reached $1.49 billion in 2025, a 15% increase from the previous year, with PeckShield connecting the rise to the larger sums taken in individual heists.
On a positive note, approximately $334.9 million of stolen crypto was recovered or frozen by authorities and security firms last year. However, that recovery rate was lower than the $488.5 million recovered in 2024, suggesting the scale and complexity of thefts are outpacing mitigation efforts.
Recent data offers a mixed outlook. A separate report from PeckShield on January 3, 2026, noted that losses from exploits fell to $76 million in December 2025, a 60% drop from November. However, the new year began with a major breach, as the Truebit protocol lost $26.5 million in an exploit on January 9.
This ongoing cycle of attacks is a reminder that while monthly totals may fluctuate, the underlying threats of infrastructure vulnerabilities and personalized scams remain persistent challenges for the crypto ecosystem.
Together, the cases support PeckShield’s view that 2025’s losses were less about random exploits and more about precision targeting, where social engineering and access to centralized systems played a growing role.
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