Crypto Losses Skyrocket to $364M in April, Fueled by $331M Bitcoin Heist

In April 2025, the cryptocurrency sector experienced a dramatic surge in losses due to hacks, scams, and exploits, totaling $364 million-a staggering 1,163% increase from the $28.8 million lost in March. This sharp rise was primarily driven by a single sophisticated attack on an elderly American, who lost 3,520 Bitcoin valued at approximately $330.7 million, marking the fifth-largest crypto theft on record. The attacker employed advanced social engineering techniques to gain access to the victim’s wallet, bypassing technical safeguards by exploiting human behavior.

Excluding this massive heist, total losses in April still amounted to $34 million, representing a 21% increase from the previous month. The main methods behind these losses were phishing scams, social engineering, access control exploits, and price manipulation. Phishing alone accounted for the majority of the losses, roughly $337 million.

Despite the alarming figures, some positive developments occurred in April. White hat hackers and affected protocols successfully recovered about $18.2 million of the stolen funds. Notable recoveries included:

• KiloEx, which suffered a $7.5 million exploit but saw full repayment within four days.
• ZKsync Association, which recovered $5 million in tokens after a breach involving its airdrop distribution contract; the attacker returned the funds in exchange for a 10% bounty.
• DeFi protocol Loopscale, which reclaimed $5.8 million after negotiating directly with the attacker, who agreed to return the assets in exchange for a 10% whitehat bounty and immunity from legal action.

April’s losses, while severe, were still less than those in February 2025, which remains the costliest month of the year so far. February’s losses reached $1.53 billion, largely due to the $1.46 billion Bybit hack attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group-the largest crypto hack ever recorded-and a $49.5 million attack on stablecoin issuer Infini.

These incidents highlight a troubling trend in the crypto industry where attackers increasingly use social engineering and phishing to bypass technical defenses, emphasizing the need for heightened awareness and security measures targeting human vulnerabilities.