In a significant shift, crypto losses plummeted to $49 million in February, marking an 87% decrease from January”s staggering $385 million. This decline indicates a notable change in attackers” tactics, pivoting from traditional smart contract exploits to phishing schemes and wallet scams.
According to the blockchain intelligence firm Nominis, the estimated losses for February were approximately $49 million (AU$72 million), while independent security firm PeckShield reported a narrower figure of $26.5 million (AU$39 million) from 15 confirmed attacks. This represents the lowest monthly total since March 2025.
The largest breach reported was at Step Finance, which suffered an estimated loss of $30 million (AU$44 million) before ceasing operations on February 23. Investigators revealed that the breach was due to compromised executive devices that allowed unauthorized access to treasury signing capabilities, rather than a flaw in the protocol”s smart contracts.
Nominis” report highlighted that social engineering techniques, particularly phishing attacks, inflicted more financial damage than code exploits during February. Losses attributed to phishing reached approximately $8.5 million (AU$12.5 million). Additionally, security experts identified a rise in activity from drainer services, which facilitate scams through fake websites and cloned social media accounts. The phenomenon of address poisoning also increased, as attackers exploited lookalike wallet addresses to mislead users into erroneous transfers.
Among other protocol exploits, YieldBlox lost $10 million (AU$14.7 million) due to a price manipulation attack on February 21, while IoTeX reported a loss of $8.9 million (AU$13.1 million) on the same day due to a private key breach.
Security firms attribute the overall decline in losses partly to enhanced security measures. For instance, Bybit reported blocking $300 million (AU$441 million) in unauthorized withdrawals in the fourth quarter of 2025. Nominis also pointed to improved monitoring and operational controls as a contributing factor to this decrease.
Looking ahead, Chainalysis estimates that total crypto losses for 2025 could reach $3.4 billion (AU$5.0 billion), underscoring the ongoing challenges within the cryptocurrency security landscape.
