August proves deadly for crypto: $163 mln lost to wallet, exchange breaches
Key Takeaways
August noticed $163 million stolen from crypto customers and exchanges, with main breaches like a 783 BTC pockets hack and repeated assaults on BtcTurk highlighting rising sophistication in cybercrime.
Crypto customers and exchanges confronted a turbulent month, with blockchain safety agency PeckShield reporting a complete of $163 million in stolen belongings.
August — The deadliest month for crypto?
August proved to be one other turbulent month for the crypto area, with losses piling up throughout exchanges, DeFi protocols, and particular person wallets.
Essentially the most vital single loss occurred on the nineteenth of August, when a Bitcoin holder fell sufferer to a social engineering assault.
The attackers posed as assist brokers for a {hardware} pockets and tricked the person into revealing their credentials.
This led to a switch of 783 BTC (price $91.4 million) to the criminals, who shortly funneled the funds by Wasabi Pockets, a privacy-focused device usually used to obscure transaction trails.
Turkey’s largest crypto alternate, BtcTurk, confronted one more blow, reporting a theft of $48–54 million after hackers compromised hot-wallet keys.
Different assaults and exploits
Different notable incidents included a $7 million loss at ODIN•FUN, $5 million drained from BetterBank.io, and a $4.5 million exploit on CrediX Finance.
BetterBank’s PulseChain protocol was particularly targeted by its bonus minting system, the place attackers created pretend liquidity swimming pools to reap limitless rewards.
Regardless of warnings from the auditor Zokyo, the workforce ignored them, inflicting a partial loss that the attackers later returned, blurring the road between a hack and a so-called “white hat” occasion.
This episode uncovered the dangers of ignored audits, flawed DeFi designs, and misaligned incentives, displaying that even extremely touted protocols can crumble below human mismanagement.
Moreover, the CrediX hack escalated when the attackers turned it into what gave the impression to be an exit rip-off.
The attackers initially agreed to return the stolen funds.
However, they in the end routed the belongings by Twister Money, a mixing service designed to anonymize blockchain transactions.
Nevertheless, bodily assaults towards crypto holders remained uncommon, with just one reported incident in Paris.
Kidnappers seized a former dealer for a €10,000 ransom however later launched him, leaving him with facial accidents.
What’s extra?
These August losses comply with a steep upward pattern in crypto-related hacks, with July already seeing a 27% enhance from June.
All in all, the primary half of 2025 underscores a stark actuality for the crypto business, with over $2.3 billion already misplaced to hacks.
This complete additionally consists of huge incidents just like the Bybit breach and the $225 million Cetus Protocol exploit.
Based on PeckShield, pockets breaches alone have value customers $1.7 billion throughout 34 incidents this 12 months.
Analysts recommend that hovering crypto costs, with Bitcoin constantly buying and selling above $100,000, could also be incentivizing attackers.
Although safety groups are intensifying efforts to patch vulnerabilities, threats proceed to develop.
Due to this fact, it’s clear that the crypto sector’s fast development is matched by an equally aggressive and evolving wave of cyber threats.
