North Korean hackers to steal $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2025, a 51% increase from the previous year

The cryptocurrency ecosystem faces another challenging year in 2025, with North Korea in particular seeing a 51% increase in cryptocurrency thefts from the cryptocurrency market to $2.02 billion (approximately 318 billion yen) compared to the previous year, according to a report by Chainalysis, a blockchain technology data platform.

2025 Crypto Theft Reaches $3.4 Billion

According to Chainalysis, the total amount of cryptocurrency stolen between January and early December 2025 was $3.4 billion (approximately 535 billion yen). Of this, $1.5 billion (approximately 236 billion yen) worth of ETH was stolen from the cryptocurrency exchange Bybit in February 2025. The top three thefts in 2025 accounted for 69% of the total amount.

Among these, hackers from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) continue to pose a major threat. According to Chainalysis, attacks by North Korean hackers, while less frequent, still account for 76% of all attacks, and the amount stolen is the largest ever. Including the $2.02 billion stolen in 2025, the total damage caused by North Korean hackers is estimated to be $6.75 billion (approximately 1.62 trillion yen).

North Korea has been embedding IT workers within cryptocurrency services to gain privileged access and enable impactful breaches, with the record-breaking year in 2025 likely reflecting increased intrusions into exchanges, custodian banks, and Web3 companies.

It has been found that North Korea takes about 45 days to launder stolen cryptocurrency. This 45-day period is likely due to operational constraints. Chainalysis analyzes that the reason for the decrease in attack frequency in 2025 is that when a large theft like the ByBit case is successful, the time it takes to launder the money causes the North Koreans to slow down their operations.