Coinbase Users Lose $46M to Phishing Scams — Crypto Chaos Unleashed!

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In the shadowy corners of the crypto world, where greed and gullibility dance a macabre waltz, Coinbase users have been fleeced of a staggering $46 million. The culprits? Phishing scams, the digital equivalent of a pickpocket with a PhD in deception. 🎭

These scams, as intricate as a spider’s web, involve address poisoning and wallet spoofing. Victims, lured by the siren song of rising crypto prices, unwittingly send their assets to fraudulent addresses that mimic legitimate ones. It’s a cruel joke, played out on the blockchain stage. 🕸️

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has uncovered a series of thefts linked to Coinbase wallets. A single wallet address was drained of 400 Bitcoin (BTC), a heist worth $34.9 million. “After uncovering this theft, I noticed multiple other suspected thefts from Coinbase users in the past two weeks, bringing the total stolen this month to $46M+,” ZachXBT wrote in a March 28 Telegram post. 🕵️‍♂️

Coinbase, ever the vigilant guardian, is investigating the claims. “Coinbase will never call you or ask for your login credentials, API key, or two-factor authentication codes. We will also never ask you to transfer funds,” said Jaclyn Sales, director of communications at Coinbase. “If someone contacts you claiming to be from Coinbase and requests this information or asks you to transfer assets, do not do it. It is a scam,” she added. 🚨

Scammers: The Great Pretenders

Scammers, the chameleons of the digital age, often impersonate large global brands to create a false sense of trust. In the crypto industry, Coinbase is a favorite target, but Meta is impersonated 25 times more often. It’s a twisted game of “Who’s Who?” where the stakes are your hard-earned crypto. 🎭

Coinbase, the world’s third-largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange, with over $1.6 billion in daily trading volume, advises users to protect themselves by using a dedicated email account, enabling two-factor authentication, setting up an address allowlist, and using Coinbase Vault for additional security. 🛡️

A History of Phishing Losses

Between December 2024 and January 2025, over $65 million may have been stolen from Coinbase users in “high confidence thefts,” according to ZachXBT. “Our number is likely much lower than the actual amount stolen as our data was limited to my DMs and thefts we discovered on-chain which does not account for Coinbase support tickets and police reports we do not have access to,” he added. 📉

Pig butchering scams, another type of phishing scheme, involve prolonged and complex manipulation tactics to trick investors into willingly sending their assets to fraudulent crypto addresses. On the Ethereum network, these schemes cost the industry over $5.5 billion across 200,000 identified cases in 2024, according to Cyvers. 🐷

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2025-03-31 12:52