Crypto Losses Surge 1,163% in April 2025, Driven by $330.7 Million Heist

Crypto-related losses surged dramatically in April 2025, spiking by 1,163% compared to the previous month. This is according to a report by a blockchain security firm. The firm revealed that $364 million was lost to scams, hacks, and exploits throughout the month, which is a sharp increase from the $28.8 million that was recorded in March. A single incident was largely responsible for the massive jump. It was a highly sophisticated heist targeting an elderly US individual, in which 3,520 Bitcoin were stolen. If this exceptional case is excluded, the total losses in April amount to $34 million, which still represents a 21% increase from March. The firm identified phishing scams as the top method that was used in these attacks, with social engineering, access control vulnerabilities, and price manipulation also contributing quite a bit to the total losses.

Despite the alarming figures, there were some positive developments in April. White hat hackers returned around $18.2 million during the month. This includes full restitution from the KiloEx exploiter, who gave back $7.5 million just four days after the exploit that led to the decentralized exchange suspending operations. The ZKsync Association also managed to recover $5 million in stolen tokens after a security breach targeting its airdrop distribution contract. Loopscale, a DeFi protocol, was able to recover roughly half of the $5.7 million that was lost in an exploit involving its RateX PT token pricing mechanism.

While April's losses were severe, February 2025 is still the worst month for crypto losses so far this year. This is because of the staggering $1.4 billion Bybit hack attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. It is still the largest crypto hack on record. In contrast, the end of 2024 saw a steady decline in losses, with December recording just $28.6 million, down from $63.8 million in November and $115.8 million in October.

The largest incident in April happened when an elderly US individual became the victim of one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in history by losing 3,520 Bitcoin valued at approximately $330.7 million. The heist took place on April 28, 2025, and was announced by an on-chain investigator. They described the attack as being carried out through advanced social engineering techniques. The stolen Bitcoin was quickly moved using a method known as a peel chain, where large sums are broken into smaller amounts and distributed through numerous wallets to obscure the trail. The attacker quickly laundered the Bitcoin across more than six instant exchanges and ultimately converted a lot of it into Monero, a privacy-centric cryptocurrency. This caused Monero’s price to spike by 50% to a brief high of $339.

According to an on-chain researcher, more than 300 wallets and 20 payment services or exchanges were involved in the laundering operation. The tool, Extractor, tracked around $284 million worth of Bitcoin through these networks, which was eventually diluted to about $60 million due to repeated fund splitting and redistribution. Binance confirmed its involvement in the ongoing investigation. However, experts pointed out that efforts to freeze assets on centralized exchanges are often slowed down by bureaucratic legal procedures. The attacker also bridged a small amount of the stolen BTC to Ethereum, and deposited it into various platforms to complicate tracking even more.

While some people suspected that North Korea’s Lazarus Group may have been behind the attack, the on-chain investigator and other analysts dismissed this theory by suggesting the methods used did not align with the group’s known patterns. The level of automation and coordination that were involved suggests this was the work of highly sophisticated, independent hackers who prepared accounts across exchanges and over-the-counter desks in advance. Security experts explained that once funds are converted into Monero, they become nearly impossible to trace due to the asset’s privacy features. As a result, the chances of recovering the stolen Bitcoin are very diminished. They also advised crypto holders to use multisignature wallets, rotate keys frequently, minimize exposure to online hot wallets, and store large sums in cold wallets to better protect their assets.

This incident contributes to what has already been a brutal year for crypto thefts. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, hackers stole over $1.6 billion in crypto assets. People invested in crypto did not only lose money through exploits. A record number of crypto tokens failed in early 2025, with one in four tokens launched since 2021 going defunct in the first quarter alone. The platform’s April 30 report revealed that nearly 1.8 million tokens stopped trading in Q1 2025, which is the highest number of token failures recorded in a single quarter. Since 2021, around 7 million tokens have been listed on the platform, and over half—approximately 3.7 million—are now considered failed.

Research analyst linked this spike to broader market instability after Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration in January of 2025. Although Bitcoin surged to new highs during this period, a sharp downturn soon followed, which dragged down the broader crypto market and contributed to widespread project failures. Another major factor in the token collapse is the explosion of new tokens created via a token generation platform that went live in January 2024. The tool drastically simplified the process of launching tokens, which led to a flood of meme coins and low-effort crypto projects. While this resulted in a record-breaking year for token launches in 2024, most of these projects did not survive. In fact, 98% of tokens created through the platform failed to move beyond the platform’s initial bonding curve and become tradable on open markets.

To put the scale of recent failures into perspective, the number of collapsed tokens in just the first quarter of 2025 represents nearly half of all recorded token failures since 2021. In comparison, the second-highest number of annual failures was recorded in 2024 at 1.3 million, while the years 2021 to 2023 saw relatively few failures. The founder said earlier in March that investor enthusiasm for meme coins has cooled, particularly after several high-profile misfires like the LIBRA token. Although the platform saw a trading volume peak after the Jan. 18 launch of Trump’s meme coin, both crypto and traditional financial markets were rattled in March by Trump’s tariff threats.