Crypto theft fell in February as attackers shifted from protocol exploits to phishing and wallet approval scams.

According to a monthly report from Nominis, the on-chain platform estimated February losses at US$49 million (AU$72 million), down 87% from US$385 million (AU$566 million) in January. 

PeckShield, using a narrower method that counts confirmed on-chain exploits, recorded US$26.5 million (AU$39 million), its lowest monthly total since March 2025.

The largest loss came from Step Finance, which lost about US$30 million (AU$44 million). The Solana-based platform shut down on February 23. Investigators said the breach came from compromised executive devices that exposed treasury signing access, not from a smart contract flaw.

Blockchain analytics confirmed the hack was attributed to compromised executive devices that gave attackers access to the organisation’s treasury signing environment, not a flaw in the protocol’s smart contracts.

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Crypto Hack Losses Plunge 87% 

Nominis said social engineering caused more damage than code exploits during the month. Phishing attacks accounted for about US$8.5 million (AU$12.5 million) in losses. Security firms also tracked more activity from drainer services, which provide fake websites, cloned social accounts and malicious contracts for scam campaigns. Address poisoning also rose, with attackers using lookalike wallet addresses to misdirect transfers.

Among protocol exploits, YieldBlox lost US$10 million (AU$14.7 million) in a price manipulation attack on February 21. IoTeX lost US$8.9 million (AU$13.1 million) the same day in a private key breach.

Security firms linked the drop in losses partly to tighter controls. Bybit said it blocked US$300 million (AU$441 million) in unauthorised withdrawals in the fourth quarter of 2025. Nominis also cited stronger monitoring and operating controls.

Chainalysis estimated total crypto losses for 2025 at US$3.4 billion (AU$5.0 billion).

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