Crypto Investors Lost $2.5B to Hack and Scams in the First Half of 2025: Certik

Hackers stole more than $2.47 billion worth of cryptocurrency in the first half of 2025, already exceeding last year’s total of $2.42 billion, according to Certik’s Hack3d Report.

The majority of that figure can be attributed to two incidents; the Bybit breach and the Cetus Protocol exploit that combined were worth $1.78 billion.

Wallet compromise was the key attack vectors for hackers in the first half of this year, contributing to $1.7 billion worth of losses, while phishing was still rampant resulting in $410 million stolen across 132 incidents.

Phishing is a technique hackers use to steal a victim’s password or credentials in order to access an account.

“While the overall figures are alarming, it is important to point out that the majority of the funds lost in H1 were attributable to two concentrated, high-impact events,” said CertiK co-founder Ronghui Gu.

“But regardless, the results serve as another reminder to the industry that there is still much work to be done,” Gu added.

The report also found that $801 million was lost in Q2 alone, a 52% decrease from the previous quarter. The majority of hacks took place on Ethereum, with $1.5 billion stolen across 164 incidents, followed by Bitcoin with $373 million stolen across 10 incidents.