Crypto theft in 2025 already surpasses record year 2022, Chainalysis
Hacks on personal wallets surge as crypto crimes grow
According to a report by Chainalysis, 2025 is currently 17% ahead of 2022 — previously the worst year on record — in terms of crypto theft. What’s unique about this year is the growing share of personal wallet hacks.
If the trend continues, over $4 billion could be stolen from crypto services by year’s end. A significant share of that figure comes from the $1.5 billion ByBit hack, which alone made up the majority of the $2.17 billion stolen in the first half of the year.
Personal wallet breaches are increasingly dominating the stats, now accounting for 23.35% of all crypto theft incidents.
"Wrench attacks" — physical violence or coercion against crypto holders — appear to correlate with Bitcoin price movements, indicating opportunistic attacks during market highs, the report states.
Hotspots for victims
Top 10 countries by amount of stolen funds per unit of cases. Source: Chainalysis
Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Central & East Asia saw the sharpest rise in victim counts between H1 2024 and H1 2025.
Thieves paying more to avoid detection
Analysts found behavioral differences between attackers targeting services and those hacking personal wallets. Hackers breaching services tend to be more technically sophisticated. Launderers, meanwhile, are overpaying network fees to obscure transaction trails: from an average of 2.58x fees in 2021 to 14.5x in 2025.
Stolen fund laundering behavior, types of victims and fund destination. Source: Chainalysis
While the USD-denominated cost of laundering has fallen, the fee multiplier relative to normal blockchain use has soared. Hackers targeting wallets increasingly leave larger sums idle on-chain, rather than laundering them immediately.
Core issue: Theft remains the biggest threat
Illicit crypto activity in 2025 is on track to meet or exceed last year’s forecasted $51 billion, despite major disruptions to criminal infrastructure.
The closure of Garantex (a sanctioned Russian exchange) and the likely FinCEN listing of Huione Guarantee, a Cambodian Chinese-language platform that processed over $70 billion, have changed the way funds move through the ecosystem.
Yet, fund theft remains the top concern. While other forms of illegal activity show mixed year-on-year trends, crypto theft poses both an immediate risk to users and a long-term security challenge for the entire industry.
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