A brand new report by blockchain intelligence agency TRM Labs has revealed {that a} staggering $2.1 billion value of cryptocurrency has been stolen within the first half of 2025 throughout at the very least 75 hacks and exploits.
This marks a ten% enhance over the earlier first-half report set in 2022 and almost matches whole crypto thefts in all of 2024.
The report paints a grim image of an ecosystem beneath siege—not simply from conventional cybercriminals, however more and more from state-sponsored actors weaponizing digital belongings for geopolitical and strategic ends.
The Bybit breach
In accordance with the report, the largest occasion of the yr to date was the $1.5 billion theft from Dubai-based change Bybit in February, the most important crypto hack in historical past, which TRM Labs attributes to North Korean state actors.
The incident alone accounted for almost 70% of whole losses in H1 2025 and pushed the common hack dimension to $30 million—double the common in the identical interval final yr.
“The Bybit assault redefined the risk panorama. It underscored how cryptocurrency theft has developed right into a software of statecraft,” TRM Labs mentioned.
Notably, North Korea-linked teams had been accountable for $1.6 billion of the overall stolen, solidifying their dominance as probably the most prolific nation-state risk actors within the crypto house.
Past North Korea
Whereas North Korea led in quantity, the report additionally documented new gamers utilizing crypto hacks for symbolic or political functions.
On June 18, 2025, the Iranian change Nobitex was hacked for over $90 million, reportedly by an Israel-linked group, Gonjeshke Darande (Predatory Sparrow).
- Not like typical cyber heists, the attackers transferred the stolen funds to unspendable vainness addresses, strongly suggesting non-financial motives.
- In accordance with TRM Labs, this alerts a disturbing development: digital asset theft as a weapon in geopolitical battle.
- The report additional reveals that greater than 80% of the stolen funds got here from infrastructure assaults—breaches focusing on the technical spine of crypto platforms, comparable to personal key thefts, seed phrase publicity, and front-end compromises.
- These had been, on common, 10 occasions bigger than different assault vectors and sometimes concerned social engineering or insider threats.
In distinction, DeFi protocol exploits comparable to flash mortgage and re-entrancy assaults accounted for round 12% of losses, persevering with to show flaws in good contract safety regardless of years of warnings and audits.
Want for crypto safety
The report emphasizes that the primary half of 2025 marks a strategic pivot in crypto safety threats, demanding greater than standard fixes.
“Large breaches, typically tied to nation-state operations, require a brand new protection paradigm,” TRM Labs mentioned.
It requires an industry-wide improve in fundamental and superior cybersecurity practices, together with multi-factor authentication (MFA), chilly storage of funds, common good contract audits, insider risk detection, and social engineering countermeasures.
TRM Labs additionally pressured the necessity for world cooperation amongst regulators, regulation enforcement, and blockchain analytics corporations to swiftly monitor and get well stolen belongings.
It added that worldwide authorized frameworks, info sharing, and coordinated sanctions in opposition to state-sponsored cybercriminals can be essential for deterrence.
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