It’s a number that stands in sharp contrast to the carnage seen in early 2025, when a single breach wiped out $1.5 billion from crypto exchange Bybit.

2 Attacks Did Most Of The Damage

Out of 15 recorded incidents in February, two attacks were behind much of the losses. The bigger of the two hit YieldBlox, a DAO-managed lending pool, on Feb. 21. Attackers manipulated token prices to drain $10 million from the protocol.

That same day, decentralized identity platform IoTeX was also struck — clos to $9 million was taken through a private key exploit. Together, those two incidents alone made up over 70% of the month’s total losses.

Compared to January, the drop is hard to ignore. Reports from PeckShield show that February’s $26.5 million total represents a 69% decline from the $86 million recorded just a month earlier.
Part of the explanation, according to a PeckShield spokesperson, is simply the absence of a headline-grabbing, billion-dollar breach. When no single attack dominates the numbers, the totals look far more manageable.

Market conditions also played a role. Bitcoin dipped below $70,000 in early February, triggering a broad market correction that appeared to shift the focus away from protocol attacks.

During turbulent stretches, traders and institutions are preoccupied with managing losses and moving liquidity. That kind of environment, reports suggest, tends to suppress exploit activity rather than encourage it.

Crypto Security Standards Are Getting Stricter

The improvement may not be entirely down to luck or timing. Analysts say that tighter risk controls, stronger vetting of counterparties, and better real-time monitoring across major platforms have all contributed to a more secure environment.

Artificial intelligence is being credited as a rising force in the fight against vulnerabilities. Automated code checks, anomaly detection tools, and pre-deployment attack simulations are catching problems earlier — before they can be exploited.

Experts say that if security standards keep pace with the rate of innovation, losses could continue to shrink through the rest of the year. Phishing Stays A Stubborn Threat

Not everything is trending in the right direction. Phishing attacks — where criminals pose as trusted contacts or platforms to steal login credentials and private keys — remain a serious and ongoing problem.

Losses tied to wallet-draining phishing schemes fell sharply in 2025, dropping from $494 million down to $83 million. But the threat has not disappeared.

According to PeckShield, bad actors are increasingly shifting their attention away from targeting code and toward targeting people. Tricking a user into handing over access is often easier than cracking a well-audited smart contract.

The firm urged both institutions and large holders to rely on multi-signature cold storage solutions and to treat private key security as non-negotiable.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
source: https://www.tradingview.com/news/newsbtc:e4fa2eca4094b:0-crypto-s-quietest-month-in-nearly-a-year-but-hackers-haven-t-gone-away/