August Crypto Hacks Surge to $163M—15% Spike Signals Security Crisis
Crypto's bleeding continues as August thefts hit alarming new heights.
Security firm PeckShield just dropped the bombshell: hackers looted $163 million last month alone. That’s a 15% jump from July—no slowdown in sight.
Where’s the money going? Straight into shadowy wallets, while exchanges scramble to patch holes.
DeFi protocols took the hardest hits. Smart contract exploits, phishing attacks, good old-fashioned social engineering—the usual suspects, but with bigger paydays.
Remember when ‘code is law’ sounded innovative? Now it just sounds expensive.
Regulators are watching, investors are sweating, and the hackers? They’re booking vacations.
Another day, another dumpster fire in digital asset land—but hey, at least the auditors are making bank.
Rise in Numbers
Blockchain security firm PeckShield released its report from last month, disclosing the unfortunate rise in crypto crimes over the past two months. The findings indicate that July saw $142 million lost to exploits, whereas August marked a 15% increase, marking a total of $163 million in losses.
The post (embed) highlights the most vicious attacks, with the most prominent being a social engineering heist exceeding $91M in stolen Bitcoin from a long-time holder.
#PeckShieldAlert In August 2025, ~16 major crypto exploits were recorded, resulting in total losses of $163M—a 15% increase from July’s $142M.
Notably, @btcturk suffered its second major breach in just over a year, losing over $50M after a $54M hack in June 2024., bringing their… pic.twitter.com/JWiWNEDdZW
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) September 1, 2025
The largest crypto exchange in Turkey, BtcTurk, follows, with over $50 million vanished. This is also the second instance where a security vulnerability of theirs has been exploited over the last year.
Memecoin launchpad Odin.fun was drained of $7M in bitcoin due to a manipulation in their automated market maker (AMM), linked to Chinese hackers. Additionally, DeFi bank BetterBank.io was robbed of $5 million, despite having recently been audited by Zokyo.
The last incident noted is that of the lending platform CrediX, which launched recently, where a bad actor abused various administrative roles within the protocol and hijacked $4.5M.
Crime Never Sleeps
Reports indicate that this year is currently the worst for cryptocurrency hacks, and with this pace, the losses will likely exceed $4 billion by the end of 2025.
Personal wallet compromises represent a growing share of the thefts, with over 23% of the attacks being linked to individual users year to date.
“Wrench” or physical attacks are also a rising trend, closely following Bitcoin price movements, showing an increase in this type of violence in periods of price jumps.
The highest concentration of victims seems to be from the United States, Germany, Russia, and Canada, among a few other countries.
