NEW YORK — Cryptocurrency thefts edged higher during 2025 as hacking activity linked to North Korea intensified, according to a new report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
The crypto industry lost more than $3.4 billion to theft between January and early September, the company said in a preview of its annual crypto crime report. Nearly half of that amount — about $1.5 billion — stemmed from a single incident: the February breach of Bybit, one of the largest crypto exchange hacks on record, Chainanalysis said.
“The cryptocurrency ecosystem faced another challenging year in 2025, with stolen funds continuing their upward trajectory,” Chainalysis said.
Four Shifts
The report points to four major shifts in theft patterns:
- The continued role of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as a leading threat actor
- Increasingly severe attacks on centralized crypto services
- A rise in personal wallet compromises
- Diverging trends in decentralized finance, or DeFi, hacks.
According to the analysis, North Korean-linked hackers stole an estimated $2.02 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025, a 51% increase from last year, bringing their cumulative total to $6.75 billion, the report said.
“That growth occurred despite a lower number of attacks, as hackers carried out fewer but significantly larger thefts,” ChainAnalysis said.
Chainalysis said those operations often involved embedding IT workers inside crypto firms or using sophisticated impersonation tactics aimed at senior executives.
The report’s data also showed that losses were heavily concentrated. The three largest hacks accounted for 69% of total stolen funds, with the biggest incidents reaching more than 1,000 times the median loss.
‘1,000 Times Larger’
“Funds stolen in the largest attacks are now 1,000 times larger than those stolen in the typical incident,” the company said, surpassing even peaks seen during the 2021 crypto bull market.
