Massive Crypto Thefts Reach $142 Million in July, According to PeckShield
In the month of July 2025, the world witnessed a significant surge in cryptocurrency hacks, with total losses reaching an alarming $142 million across 17 major attacks, according to PeckShield. This represents a 27.2% increase compared to June's $111.6 million.
The top five hacks accounted for over $130 million of the losses in July. Notable incidents include the $44.2 million insider breach at Indian exchange CoinDCX, where an employee was implicated in a sophisticated server breach involving compromised login credentials and malware on a company laptop.
Another significant attack was the $42 million re-entrancy attack on GMX, a decentralized exchange, which targeted vulnerabilities in its protocol’s first version on Arbitrum. The attacker managed to return about $40.5 million after a bounty payment.
The BigONE exchange suffered a third-party attack on its hot wallet infrastructure, resulting in losses of around $28 million. WOOX experienced a $12 million phishing attack that compromised its development environment.
The increasing frequency and scale of such attacks highlight key vulnerabilities in crypto infrastructure, particularly insider threats and admin access controls, protocol vulnerabilities exploitable through re-entrancy attacks, phishing and social engineering tactics, and exploitation of off-chain infrastructure and multisig wallet weaknesses.
To combat these threats, proposed solutions emphasize strengthening security protocols and internal controls, enhancing regulatory frameworks, adopting more robust multi-factor authentication and wallet security measures, and promoting bug bounty programs to incentivize ethical hacking and detect vulnerabilities early.
Mitchell Amador, CEO of Immunefi, advocates for a unified security stack for crypto platforms, including automation and intelligence across the entire lifecycle. He proposes training AI models on extensive collections of known vulnerabilities to spot unusual activity and stop threats before they cause damage.
The rising trend of crypto thefts—already over $2.2 billion lost in 2025 across 344 incidents—urges the sector to implement stronger defensive measures to safeguard investor funds and infrastructure resilience.
While June saw a temporary decrease in hacks, dropping 56% from May, it still had its fair share of significant breaches, including an $82 million breach at Iranian exchange Nobitex. The Nobitex breach in June was linked to Israeli hackers.
The GMX exploit caused a $42 million loss, but the attacker later returned roughly $40.5 million in crypto, marking a rare instance where funds were returned in a hack.
The rising trend in crypto thefts underscores the need for comprehensive defenses and risk management in the digital asset landscape. It is crucial for exchanges and decentralized platforms to prioritize security to protect investor funds and maintain resilience in the face of these persistent security challenges.
- In light of the escalating incidents of cybersecurity breaches in the cryptocurrency sector, it's essential for investing in advanced technology solutions to bolster security protocols and protect investor funds.
- Apart from strengthening security measures, it's crucial for the finance industry to collaborate with cybersecurity experts, ethical hackers, and AI models to continuously monitor and identify vulnerabilities in digital asset infrastructure.
