7 Greatest Crypto Breaches That Shook the Industry

Hacker attacks don’t just steal money they expose the cracks beneath crypto’s promise of security. In a space built on trustless systems and code, anonymous attackers have repeatedly walked away with billions, leaving users, exchanges, and regulators scrambling to catch up.

Biggest Crypto Breaches in History (Ranked)

1.) Bybit Exchange Hack ~$1.5 B (2025)

• What happened: Hackers manipulated a transaction during a transfer from a “cold wallet” (offline secure storage) to a warm wallet, stealing about 401,000 ETH valued around $1.4–$1.5 billion.
• This is widely considered the largest crypto hack ever.

2.) Ronin Network Hack ~$615 M (2022)

• What happened: Hackers compromised validator keys for the Ronin bridge (used by Axie Infinity), allowing them to approve large unauthorized withdrawals.
• One of the biggest DeFi (decentralized finance) hacks ever — linked to the Lazarus Group.

3.) Poly Network Hack ~$610 M (2021)

• What happened: A vulnerability in Poly Network’s cross-chain smart contracts allowed a hacker to siphon off more than $610 million in crypto.
• Most of the stolen funds were returned to Poly Network.

4.) Binance BNB Bridge Exploit ~$570 M (2022)

Hackers exploited a code bug on the BNB Chain bridge and withdrew BNB tokens. Part of the stolen funds were frozen or recovered after the exploit.

5.) Coincheck Exchange Hack ~$534 M (2018)

Japanese exchange Coincheck lost over half a billion dollars after hackers accessed a hot wallet (connected online).

6.) Mt. Gox Hack ~$460 M (2011–2014)

One of the earliest and most infamous hacks: Mt. Gox, once the largest Bitcoin exchange, lost hundreds of thousands of BTC, eventually filing for bankruptcy.

7.) Wormhole Bridge ~$325 M (2022)

Attackers drained crypto from the Wormhole cross-chain bridge. Later, Jump Trading helped restore stolen funds.

Summary Table

Tags: crypto-hacks, hacker-culture, blockchain-security, digital-economy, internet-culture