Chainalysis and TRM Labs estimate that $2.7B was stolen in crypto in 2025 in total, up from $2.2B in 2024; the biggest hack was the $1.4B breach at Bybit
Cybercriminals stole $2.7 billion in crypto this year, a new record for crypto-stealing hacks, according to blockchain-monitoring firms.
Context & Ripple Effects
The 2025 tally extends a worsening sequence: 2024's $2.2 billion in reported crypto theft followed an already elevated 2023, while the first half of 2025 had already exceeded the prior full-year total in Chainalysis data. The year’s losses were heavily shaped by a single major incident, consistent with TRM’s earlier finding that a small number of attacks can dominate totals.
The story also lands as blockchain-monitoring firms flag sharply higher cryptocurrency flows to addresses tied to sanctioned entities. Together, the data keep security and compliance—not just market adoption—at the center of the sector’s credibility challenge.
First-order effects
- The reported annual loss total rises from 2024, giving exchanges, custodians and their users a more severe recent benchmark for cyber-risk exposure.
- Bybit’s breach becomes the defining case in the annual data set, following the record Bybit hack reported in the first half of 2025.
Second-order effects
- Large platforms and service providers face stronger pressure to demonstrate custody, access-control and incident-response safeguards, since one breach can materially shape the sector-wide loss picture.
- Security-monitoring and compliance vendors such as Chainalysis and TRM Labs gain a more central role as exchanges need transaction tracing and risk assessment after major incidents.
Third-order effects
- If losses remain concentrated in very large breaches, crypto infrastructure may be judged increasingly by institutional-grade security and recoverability rather than by trading features alone.
- The combination of major thefts and reported sanctioned-address activity is likely to deepen the long-running crypto hacking problem and reinforce the sector’s persistent security shortfall, adding to pressure for stronger oversight and controls.
The trend: Crypto’s legitimacy gap is increasingly being determined by whether major platforms can contain catastrophic security failures and trace illicit flows at scale.