Crypto Crime Surges in 2025 – Is Mainstream Adoption Also Inviting Mainstream Th

[CryptAnalysisByAB]

In 2025, crypto went completely mainstream! With Trump's return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, due to the GENIUS Act, stablecoins are getting their runway to regulatory approval, and big names like JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Circle are pushing into the blockchain ecosystem. The stablecoin market cap surpassed $246B, and transactions volumes have surpassed Visa + Mastercard combined. By May, Bitcoin reached $111K.

Another side of the story?
H1 2025: Crypto Crime Resulted in Losses of $2.47 Billion

CertiK reported that throughout the first half of 2025, a total of 344 reported security incidents led to a loss of over $2.47B from the crypto ecosystem.

This is 47% more than the total loss all of 2024 for the ecosystem but involved fewer hacks.

Wallet exploits and phishing scams were the leading cause (with Bybit and Cetus being some of the worst protocols affected).

The hackers are learning, and seem more intelligent. Gone are the days of simple copy/paste rug pulls. Now we are seeing smart contract exploits, wallet drain hacks, deep fake schemes, and real-life wrench attacks. CertiK reported 32 real-life physical wrench attacks throughout 2025, with a third of those in France.

Ethereum remains at the top of the attack list. TRON is the highest illicit financial flow due to its low fees. DeFi tends to be the playground of exploits.

Is regulation catching up?
Chainalysis and TRM indicate that while governments are getting better at tracking tools, the majority of these attacks are happening in plain sight, through centralized exchanges or peer-to-peer.

[Z-tight]

2.5B is a whole lot of money lost, but we have to consider that bybit exchange lost $1.5B of that and Cetus exchange lost $220m, so if these services had invested in their security, then the losses would surely not have been this high. So as people learn to secure their funds from scammers, they should obviously not store it in any third party service, because they could easily lose it there, not your keys, not your coins.

[CryptAnalysisByAB]

2.5B is a whole lot of money lost, but we have to consider that bybit exchange lost $1.5B of that and Cetus exchange lost $220m, so if these services had invested in their security, then the losses would surely not have been this high. So as people learn to secure their funds from scammers, they should obviously not store it in any third party service, because they could easily lose it there, not your keys, not your coins.

Absolutely agree—Bybit and Cetus alone accounted for nearly 70% of the $2.47B lost in H1 2025. It shows how vulnerable centralized platforms still are.

“Not your keys, not your coins” remains true. But the reality is, many users—retail and institutional—still sacrifice security for ease of use. Maybe it’s time these platforms face tighter regulations and mandatory audits.

One possible solution? Introduce a universal smart contract audit registry—where every DeFi or CeFi protocol must pass third-party audits and list results on-chain before launching. Combine that with mandatory protocol-level insurance pools to cover user losses from verified exploits.

We can’t rely on users alone to protect themselves anymore. The next step is shared accountability—from platforms, developers, and regulators alike.

[Z-tight]

It shows how vulnerable centralized platforms still are.

Centralized exchanges hold a lot of money in customer funds, scammers know this, so they will always be a target, that is why i expect them to take security more serious than they do right now.

We can’t rely on users alone to protect themselves anymore.

Isn't this the whole point of using BTC, to be our own bank and protect our own funds. Regulate custodial services all you like, and it still wouldn't be a recommended option to store coins.

[TravelMug]

2.5B is a whole lot of money lost, but we have to consider that bybit exchange lost $1.5B of that and Cetus exchange lost $220m, so if these services had invested in their security, then the losses would surely not have been this high. So as people learn to secure their funds from scammers, they should obviously not store it in any third party service, because they could easily lose it there, not your keys, not your coins.

And just to think about it, we are just in the middle of the year and there could be a lot of things that can happened to the crypto market. And if I'm not mistaken, the numbers are really going to grow. Despite what the exchanges are doing, there will be a online attack that they are not ready and so there will be billions lost along the way. This is just the sad part of it, as if hackers are one step of the game. So it's a cat and mouse game right now, services trying to come up with ways to protect, while cyber criminals are improving their skills like in the real life. So the burden is really on 3rd party services, although I do agree that not our keys not our coins. But if we are a trader, we really need to used the DEX around so the threat will always be there for us.

[cryptomaniac_xxx]

2.5B is a whole lot of money lost, but we have to consider that bybit exchange lost $1.5B of that and Cetus exchange lost $220m, so if these services had invested in their security, then the losses would surely not have been this high. So as people learn to secure their funds from scammers, they should obviously not store it in any third party service, because they could easily lose it there, not your keys, not your coins.

I will till give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they really invest some money on their security, but we all know that this cyber threat will always be there. And we have seen that this criminals are targeting their employees, and do reverse engineering so that they can have access. If there is one thing that they would invest, then it should be in their employees to learn that they are now a target. We can't really avoid exchanges as most of us are trading and wanted to make profits. So we should be trading on exchanges that we know that funds are safe, or at least SAFU so that we can get back our funds although it might not be 100%. But at least their is some compensation and yeah, withdraw your funds right away if you reach some threshold as far as your profit goes.