Crypto Carnage 2025: The Staggering Toll of Scams Rocking the Industry
Crypto’s dark underbelly strikes again—billions vanish as scams run rampant in 2025. Here’s the damage so far.
Rug pulls, phishing, and good old-fashioned Ponzis are bleeding the market dry. While regulators scramble to keep up, fraudsters are cashing in on hype and human greed.
The irony? Wall Street still calls *us* the reckless ones.
Phishing Scams Skyrocket With $600M Stolen
Per Hacken’s report, phishing and social engineering attacks also hit new highs, accounting for roughly $600 million, also already surpassing 2024’s full-year total. The largest single case saw an elderly U.S. investor lose $330 million in BTC after falling for a sophisticated scam.
Coinbase users were also heavily targeted. Following a data breach, fraudsters posing as Coinbase support used real customer info to gain trust, tricking victims into handing over keys and passcodes. That incident alone netted more than $100 million.
Other schemes included fake wallet apps, malicious browser extensions, and token-approval scams hidden in cloned dApps, all designed to quietly siphon funds while users clicked through.
AI-related exploits jumped over 1000% compared to 2023. Hacken noted that most of these were tied to insecure APIs, and attackers are now using prompt injection, fake agents, and toolchain flaws to bypass industry defenses.
Collectively, these incidents have made the first half of 2025 the worst six-month stretch for Web3 security in years, prompting the need for tighter security measures.
