Hacken says Web3 losses climbed to nearly $4 billion in 2025, with North Korea behind over half the damage, and regulators are under pressure to turn security guidance into hard rules. The Hacken 2025 Yearly Security Report puts total Web3 losses at about $3.95 billion, up roughly $1.1 billion from 2024, with just over half of that attributed to North Korean threat actors. A report shared with Cointelegraph shows losses peaked at more than $2 billion in the first quarter of the year before falling to around $350 million by Q4, but Hacken warns that the pattern still points to systemic operational risk rather than isolated coding bugs. The report frames 2025 as a year where the numbers worsened, but the underlying story became clear. Smart contract bugs matter, but the biggest, least recoverable losses are still coming from weak keys, compromised signers, and sloppy off‑boarding. Read more
Altcoins lagged Bitcoin in 2025, but XRP, Zcash and Algorand outperformed on regulatory clarity, privacy demand and tokenization. Crypto markets got more institutional and more regulated in 2025, but the familiar “altcoin season” many traders expected never fully arrived. Bitcoin (BTC) hit fresh highs earlier in the cycle, yet much of the rest of the market lagged. Bitcoin was down approximately 7% year-to-date after an early-October sell-off, while the total market capitalization of altcoins declined by more than 46% from its 2025 peak, according to TradingView data. Even so, a handful of tokens managed to outperform during a year defined by selective risk taking and heavy scrutiny. XRP (XRP) drew fresh momentum from regulatory developments, Zcash (ZEC) rallied as interest returned to financial privacy, and Algorand (ALGO) got a boost from real-world tokenization efforts. Read more
Trust Wallet said it has identified 2,596 compromised addresses following its Christmas Day exploit as investigators work to separate real victims from false claims. Trust Wallet has moved into a verification phase after a Christmas Day exploit involving its browser extension; while thousands of wallets have been identified, the company has received far more reimbursement claims than expected. On Monday, Trust Wallet CEO Eowyn Chen said the company had identified 2,596 wallet addresses tied to the compromised extension. Still, it has received almost 5,000 claims, suggesting a significant amount may be false or duplicate submissions. “Because of this, accurate verification of wallet ownership is critical to ensure funds are returned to the right people,” Chen wrote. “Our team is working diligently to verify claims; combining multiple data points to distinguish legitimate victims from malicious actors.” Read more
China’s central bank will let banks pay interest on digital yuan wallets from Jan. 1, 2026, reshaping e-CNY as deposit-like money as the US bans CBDCs. China’s central bank is rolling out a new framework for the digital yuan that will allow commercial banks to pay interest on e-CNY wallet balances starting Jan. 1, 2026, a move officials say will push the central bank digital currency (CBDC) beyond its original role as a cash substitute. The new CBDC framework will allow banks to treat the digital yuan as part of their asset-liability operations, Lu Lei, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, wrote in a PBOC-affiliated China Financial Times article published on Monday. “The digital RMB will move from the digital cash era to the digital deposit currency (Digital Deposit Money) era,” said Lei in the report. “It has the functions of monetary value scale, value storage, and cross-border payment.” Read more
Weekly fund flows point to lingering caution, with investors favoring newer products and select regions over broad market exposure. Crypto exchange-traded products recorded $446 million in net outflows last week, extending a cautious trend persisting since October’s sharp market correction. According to asset manager CoinShares, the latest withdrawals bring total outflows since Oct. 10 to $3.2 billion, signaling that investor confidence has yet to recover as the year ends. The weekly outflows contrast with year-to-date (YTD) inflows of $46.3 billion, a figure broadly consistent with 2024 levels. CoinShares’ head of research, James Butterfill, said that total assets under management (AUM) have risen by just 10% YTD. He said this indicated that “the average investor has not seen a positive outcome this year once flows are taken into account.” Read more