Hackers steal $92 million from DeFi platforms in April
Crypto losses in 2025 have already reached $1.74 billion
Cryptocurrency hackers stole $92 million from decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms in April, marking a 124% increase in losses compared to March.
The April surge highlights growing vulnerabilities in the DeFi sector despite ongoing efforts to fortify protocol defenses, according to a new report by blockchain cybersecurity firm Immunefi.
All incidents targeted DeFi; centralized exchanges spared
Crypto losses in 2025 have already reached $1.74 billion, which is four times higher than the $420 million lost over the same period in 2024.
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The report identifies 15 separate incidents throughout the month, with the single largest attack targeting open-source platform UPCX, which suffered losses exceeding $70 million. KiloEx, another DeFi project, lost $7.5 million, though the stolen funds were returned shortly after the breach.
Notably, all reported attacks in April were directed at DeFi protocols, while centralized exchanges saw no successful exploits during the same period. The growing concentration of attacks on DeFi raises concerns about the sector’s exposure to increasingly sophisticated threats.
Immunefi, which claims to protect over $190 billion in digital assets and has paid more than $116 million in bug bounties, emphasized that threats from state-backed actors are becoming one of the most pressing challenges in crypto security.
“The sheer scale of the attack shows how state-backed actors are arguably the most pressing threat to our industry,” said Immunefi CEO Mitchell Amador. He warned that crypto protocols must be built under the assumption that breaches will occur and stressed the need for “zero-trust” security architectures.
Industry faces mounting security pressure
The report comes on the heels of a massive $1.4 billion breach at Bybit in February — the largest crypto hack in history. Combined with April’s attacks, hackers have already exceeded the $1.49 billion stolen in all of 2024, with over $1.7 billion stolen in just the first four months of 2025.
As attacks escalate, the crypto community is increasingly calling for rigorous, protocol-level defenses and investor education to mitigate risks. The question now is whether the DeFi industry can evolve fast enough to meet the growing sophistication of its adversaries.
We've also been informed that Lazarus Group hackers use new methods to steal crypto developers data.
