December 2025 marks a notable slowdown in major cryptocurrency exploits, offering a rare moment of relief in a year dominated by security breaches and high-profile losses.
According to data compiled by blockchain security firm PeckShield, the month recorded approximately 26 major crypto exploits, resulting in total losses of around $76 million.
While the figure is still substantial, it represents a sharp decline of more than 60% compared to November’s losses, which stood at $194.27 million. The month-over-month drop signals a meaningful reduction in attack severity, even as threat actors continue to probe weaknesses across protocols, wallets, and infrastructure.
The findings were shared publicly by PeckShield in a December summary post, drawing attention to both the improved trend and the persistent risks still facing the industry.
#PeckShieldAlert December 2025 witnessed ~26 major crypto exploits, resulting in total losses of ~$76M.
This figure represents a decrease of over 60% from November’s total of $194.27M, marking a significant reduction in monthly losses.
Notably:
🔺Wallet 0xcB80…819 lost $50M… pic.twitter.com/CNW3R6646j— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) January 1, 2026
A Steep Decline From November’s Heavy Losses
November 2025 was one of the most damaging months of the year, driven by several large-scale exploits that pushed aggregate losses close to the $200 million mark. Against that backdrop, December’s $76 million total reflects a dramatic cooldown.
This reduction suggests multiple overlapping factors at play. Security teams entered December on heightened alert following November’s incidents, while some protocols paused deployments or tightened access controls. In parallel, exploit opportunities may have temporarily narrowed as attackers exhausted known vulnerabilities.
However, analysts caution against interpreting the decline as a structural shift. The number of incidents remains relatively high, and losses are still concentrated in a handful of severe events rather than evenly distributed across smaller hacks.
In other words, fewer catastrophic failures occurred, but when breaches did happen, they were still costly.
Two Incidents Account For The Majority Of Losses
Despite the overall decline, December was far from quiet. Two incidents alone accounted for over $77 million in reported losses, underscoring how single points of failure continue to dominate exploit statistics.
The largest loss involved wallet address 0xcB80…819, which reportedly lost $50 million through an address poisoning attack. This technique manipulates transaction histories or visual similarities to trick users into sending funds to malicious addresses, rather than exploiting a smart contract bug.
The second-largest incident targeted multisig wallet 0xde5f…e965, which was drained of $27.3 million due to a private key leak. Unlike protocol-level exploits, this breach highlights persistent operational and key-management risks, particularly for wallets securing large treasuries.
Together, these two incidents eclipsed the total monthly losses reported, emphasizing how a small number of failures can define an entire reporting period.
Top Five Exploits Reveal Diverse Attack Vectors
Beyond the two headline incidents, PeckShield’s data outlines a top five list of December’s largest exploits, reflecting a wide range of attack surfaces across the ecosystem.
At the top sits multisig wallet 0xde5f…e965, with $27.3 million lost following the private key compromise. Close behind is babur.sol, which suffered a $22 million exploit, pointing to ongoing risks in smart contract design and deployment.
Wallet infrastructure also featured prominently. @TrustWallet recorded losses of approximately $8.5 million, raising renewed questions around user safety, phishing resistance, and transaction signing awareness.
Two additional protocols, @UnleashProtocol and @flow_blockchain, each reported losses of around $3.9 million. While smaller in absolute terms, these incidents reinforce the breadth of targets, from application-layer protocols to base-layer infrastructure.
The diversity of affected projects shows that no single sector holds a monopoly on risk.
What December’s Data Says About Security Trends
The sharp reduction in monthly losses may indicate that defensive measures are beginning to have an impact. Increased monitoring, faster incident response, and more cautious user behavior all likely contributed to December’s improved outcome.
At the same time, the data highlights a persistent imbalance. Losses remain heavily skewed toward operational failures, such as private key leaks and address poisoning, rather than purely technical exploits. This suggests that education, tooling, and wallet UX remain as critical as formal audits.
Another notable takeaway is concentration risk. Even with 26 reported exploits, a handful of incidents dominate total losses. This pattern increases volatility in monthly security metrics and makes trend analysis sensitive to outliers.
As a result, a single compromised key or poisoned address can undo weeks of otherwise improved security performance.
Looking Ahead To 2026 Security Challenges
December’s decline in exploit losses offers cautious optimism heading into 2026, but it does not signal the end of crypto security risks. Attackers continue to evolve, shifting focus from complex smart contract exploits to social engineering, key compromise, and user-level deception.
For protocols, the message is clear: technical audits alone are not enough. Robust key management, multisig hygiene, and continuous monitoring remain essential. For users, especially those managing large balances, vigilance around transaction details and address verification is increasingly critical.
As PeckShield’s December report shows, progress is possible. Losses can fall sharply within a single month. But the underlying threat landscape remains active, adaptive, and unforgiving.
The challenge for 2026 will be turning short-term improvements into durable security gains, before the next spike reminds the industry how quickly momentum can reverse.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.
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Source: https://nulltx.com/crypto-exploits-drop-sharply-in-december-2025/