Cryptocurrency thefts surged dramatically in September, with total losses reaching $766.49 million across 55 major hacks, according to data from security firm PeckShieldAlert.
This figure represents an approximate 462% month-over-month increase compared to August, which recorded $136.3 million in losses. Two massive incidents drove the monthly totals to record levels: the Bitget exploit, which resulted in about $387 million in losses, and a Liquid Network theft of about $320 million, of which $285 million was subsequently returned. These events now rank at the top of the largest crypto thefts year-to-date.
Other notable incidents during the period included an MEV bot front-run yielding $7.81 million that was later returned, a $7 million exploit of Duelbits, and several smaller exploits involving partial recoveries. Additional entries on the top ten list included Payment Processor V2 at $6.6 million with $3.4 million returned, DCENT Wallet at $6.57 million, Astroport at $4.9 million, Drop at $4.4 million, NostraFinance at $3.5 million, and the Nomic nBTC Bridge at $3.15 million.
Separately, PeckShield highlighted information from on-chain investigator ZachXBT regarding a $3.865 million hack affecting Near (NEAR) Intents, following irregular outflows from its Binance Smart Chain hot wallet. Stolen funds from that incident were transferred to KuCoin, bridged to Bitcoin, and traced to an address interacting with an account labeled as North Korea's Lazarus Group.
