CertiK | Crypto

The blockchain security auditor said violence against wallet holders was a ”core threat vector in the crypto ecosystem,” reporting a significant increase from 2024 to 2025. Physically targeting crypto users or their relatives, colloquially known as “wrench attacks,” significantly increased in the last year, according to blockchain security auditor CertiK. In a report on wrench attacks released on Sunday, CertiK said there had been 72 verified cases worldwide in 2025 in which crypto users had been subject to physical attacks. According to the platform, such attacks were “no longer edge cases,” given that physical assaults and kidnappings had increased by about 75% over incidents in 2024.  “Beyond direct losses, the psychological and reputational fallout is reshaping behavior across the industry, pushing founders and high-net-worth individuals toward operational anonymity and geographical relocation,” said CertiK. “2025 marks a clear inflection point: physical violence is now a core threat vector in the crypto ...

The amount of crypto stolen in January is also a 214% increase from the month before, with a majority of the value lost due to a single phishing incident. The value of cryptocurrency stolen through exploits and scams reached $370.3 million last month, the highest monthly figure in 11 months and a nearly fourfold rise from January 2025.  Crypto security company CertiK said on Saturday that of the 40 exploit and scam incidents over January, the majority of the total value stolen came from one victim that lost around $284 million due to a social engineering scam. A significant portion of the more than $370 million stolen came as a result of phishing scams, which stole $311.3 million over the month. Read more

Speaking from Davos on Thursday, co-founder and CEO Ronghui Gu said a CertiK public listing would represent a significant advancement for companies involved in Web3. Blockchain security company CertiK is keeping the door open to a future initial public offering, according to co-founder and CEO Ronghui Gu. Speaking in an interview with Acumen Media on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gu said CertiK’s valuation stands at about $2 billion and that pursuing a public listing would be a natural step for the company. However, the CEO said the company would need “investment, lots of strategic partnerships” to achieve this goal. “We still do not have a very concrete IPO plan, but this is definitely the goal we are pursuing,” said Gu, adding that CertiK going public would represent a significant step for Web3 infrastructure companies:  Read more

Blockchain data showed that stolen Bitcoin was bridged to Ethereum, fragmented into multiple wallets and later routed into the crypto mixer. Roughly $63 million in Tornado Cash deposits has been linked to the $282 million cryptocurrency wallet compromise of Jan. 10. Blockchain security firm CertiK said in a Monday X post that its monitoring systems identified Tornado Cash interactions tied to the exploit.  The update expands on the post-theft money laundering mechanics of the Jan. 10 incident, which is being tracked by multiple crypto investigators due to the amount lost and the speed at which funds were moved. Read more

US stablecoin rules under the GENIUS Act are splitting global liquidity with Europe, creating regional markets and potentially leading to cross-border friction, a report says. The United States’ new approach to stablecoin regulation is reshaping global liquidity flows and driving a sharp structural split with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regime, effectively creating separate US and EU stablecoin liquidity pools, according to a new report from blockchain security auditor CertiK. The report finds that the US digital asset market entered a new phase of regulatory clarity in 2025, with federal legislation and administrative reforms now broadly aligned around how digital assets are issued, traded and custodied. At the center of that shift is the GENIUS Act, signed into law by US President Donald Trump in July, which establishes the first federal framework for payment stablecoins. The law imposes strict reserve requirements, bans yield-bearing stablecoins, and formally integrates stablecoin ...

Ever-evolving cybersecurity efforts are forcing hackers to seek out weak links among human vulnerabilities to fuel an “endless war,” CertiK co-founder said. Despite the crypto industry’s ongoing cybersecurity efforts, protocols are engaged in an endless war with cryptocurrency hackers, who continue to attack the weakest link in crypto protocols, which is often a human behavioral element. The industry is engaged in unfair warfare with bad actors, who only need a single point of vulnerability to exploit a protocol, according to Ronghui Gu, professor of computer science at Columbia University and the co-founder of blockchain security platform CertiK. “As long as there’s a weak point or some vulnerabilities out there, sooner or later they will be discovered by these attackers,” said Gu, speaking during Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction daily live X spaces show, adding: Read more

Hackers are moving from smart contract vulnerabilities to exploiting human behavioural weaknesses, according to the co-founder of Web3 cybersecurity firm CertiK. Cryptocurrency hackers are moving away from exploiting smart contract vulnerabilities and targeting users through social engineering schemes, Web3 cybersecurity company CertiK said. More than $2.1 billion has been stolen in cryptocurrency-related attacks so far in 2025, with the bulk of losses coming from wallet compromises and phishing attacks, according to CertiK. Crypto phishing attacks are social engineering schemes where attackers share fraudulent links to steal victims’ sensitive information, such as the private keys to crypto wallets. Read more