MetaWin casino hacked for $4 million
Hot wallets used by the MetaWin crypto casino were drained of around $4 million. According to the company's CEO, the attacker "t[ook] advantage of our frictionless withdrawal system". The attacker then moved the stolen funds to crypto exchanges including KuCoin.
- "Online Casino MetaWin hacked for $4 million — ZackXBT", CoinTelegraph
North Korean developers steal $1.3 million from crypto project treasury
According to blockchain investigator zachxbt, North Korean developers using fake identities were able to steal $1.3 million from a cryptocurrency project after pushing malicious code.
zachxbt traced the payment addresses for roughly 21 developers involved in this kind of activity, which he found had been working for at least 25 different cryptocurrency projects. They had earned around $375,000 over the past month.
WazirX exchange hacked for $235 million
After a $230 million "suspicious transfer", Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX has paused withdrawals and acknowledged that one of their multisignature wallets was compromised. The attacker began selling off the tokens, causing the price of tokens like Shiba Inu to drop around 10%.
WazirX is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in India. The company was acquired by Binance in 2019, but the two companies re-separated in 2023 after a bizarre public dispute.
WazirX's June 2024 proof-of-reserves reported around $500 million in total holdings, making the $235 million theft a substantial portion of the assets held at the exchange.
Blockchain sleuth zachxbt observed that the theft had some of the hallmarks of the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacking group that has perpetrated other 9-figure heists including the $625 million Axie Infinity theft in March 2022, and the theft of more than $100 million from Atomic Wallet users.
Martin Shkreli claims to have been behind a Donald Trump memecoin
After Arkham Intelligence announced a $150,000 bounty for anyone who could prove the identity of the person behind a Donald Trump memecoin called $DJT, blockchain sleuth zachxbt quickly rose to the occasion. He submitted evidence that Martin Shkreli, the "pharma bro" who spent years in federal prison for financial fraud and who was previously known for hiking the price of an anti-malaria drug 56×, was behind the token. This wouldn't have been Shkreli's first foray into the blockchain world, after he launched a "web3 drug discovery platform", and then later dubiously claimed to have been hacked for over $450,000 after his computer was infected by a trojan after he torrented a porn video.
Shkreli attempted to frontrun the news in a Twitter space, and came out with his own claims that he had collaborated with Barron Trump to create the token, and with Andrew Tate to pump its price. However, fellow felon and memecoin pumper Roger Stone subsequently crawled out of the woodwork to claim that neither Barron nor Donald Trump was involved with $DJT.
Shkreli has yet to provide solid proof that he created the memecoin, though zachxbt's research tends to be very strong. If true, Shkreli faces potential legal repercussions, as he is still on parole after his release in 2022. The terms of his parole require him to "refrain from engaging in self-employment which involves access to client's assets, investments, or money, or solicitation of assets, investments, or money", and to make financial disclosures to the courts. Shkreli was also banned from the securities industry in 2018, as part of a settlement with the SEC.
Phishing scammers impersonate Andreessen Horowitz employee to drain crypto wallets
Attentive phishers noticed when Andreessen Horowitz partner Peter Lauten changed his Twitter username from
@peter_lauten to @lauten, and snapped up the previous username. They then began contacting various targets in the cryptocurrency world, asking to set up meetings to arrange appearances on the venture capital firm's crypto podcast.The scammers followed a familiar playbook in which they asked their targets to download video call software called "Vortax", which was actually wallet draining malware. However, these scammers had a leg up on some others who have been running that scheme: the Andreessen Horowitz website still listed Lauten's old username on their website, giving even skeptical victims some reassurance that the account was legitimate.
According to crypto sleuth zachxbt, who first reported on this incident, one victim lost $245,000 when his wallets were drained by the malware.
Memecoin team accused of hacking influencer Twitter account to manipulate markets
According to crypto sleuth zachxbt, the team behind the Solana-based $CAT memecoin hacked the Twitter account of "Gigantic-Cassocked-Rebirth" (@GCRClassic) crypto influencer.
First, the team sniped their own $CAT token launch to obtain 63% of the token supply, ultimately selling a portion of it for around $5 million. Then, they took out $2.3 million and $1 million long positions on the ORDI and ETHFI tokens, respectively. Finally, they posted from the compromised influencer account to shill the ORDI and ETHFI tokens to his massive following. Ultimately, their gambit doesn't appear to have been incredibly successful: they made around $34,000 on the ORDI position, but lost $3,500 on the ETHFI position. However, as zachxbt noted, it's possible they also opened positions on centralized exchanges where the outcomes aren't publicly visible.
Rain cryptocurrency exchange hacked for $14.8 million
Bahrain-based cryptocurrency exchange Rain was exploited for around $14.8 million dollars on April 29. The exchange did not publicly disclose the hack until the suspicious outflows across wallets on multiple blockchains were noticed by blockchain investigator zachxbt.
After zachxbt sounded the alarm on May 13, Rain admitted that they had had a "security incident", but stressed that customer funds were safe, and stated that the Rain Group had "covered any potential losses resulting from this incident".
ZKasino rug pulls after raising $33 million
A project promising to build a decentralized casino managed to raise $33 million, despite an anonymous team that had exhibited several instances of shady behavior throughout ZKasino's development. The project promised that everyone who bridged ETH to their layer-2 chain would be able to receive their ETH back 1:1 in thirty days.
Instead, the project's creators transferred those more than 10,500 ETH ($33 million) to Lido, an Ethereum staking service. As for the "return" of funds, the project team indeed followed through with their promises to return the crypto... except instead of ETH, depositors received the project's native token, ZKAS, which would vest over a period of 15 months. The project announced that they had calculated the ZKAS distribution based on a discounted rate, "as a favour to our users who have bridged to participate in the ecosystem". Gee, thanks!
One investor in the project wrote, "We made a mistake investing in Zkasino early. ... [I]t sounds like a scam, but 95% of crypto consists of such crap. With memecoins pumping every day, people believe this could be the next one."
It seems that ZKasino's creators have links to other crypto scams, including a failed "ZigZagExchange", which raised around $15 million that was allegedly misallocated to work on the ZKasino project. Crypto sleuth zachxbt had also described the team as "proven bad actors" in December, listing multiple instances in which they had avoided making promised payments.
After the rug pull, the project's planned IDO on Ape Terminal and AIT Launchpad were canceled, and MEXC (which had invested in the project's seed round) canceled the token listing.
"Munchables" crypto game exploited for $62.5 million
The "Munchables" crypto game explains: "Schnibbles grow on every realm across the Munchable's world. Each realm has their own unique and distinctive schniblet, and the Munchables react differently based on their compatibility to the schniblets fed to them. When creating an account for the Munchables, you must choose the location of your snuggery." Right then.
Things went awry in the land of the schnibbles and snuggeries when an attacker siphoned around 17,400 ETH ($62.5 million). Various descriptions of the attack circulated, with blockchain sleuth zachxbt attributing it to a recently hired developer, and crypto developer 0xQuit claiming the theft appeared to have been "planned since deploy".
Some began discussing the possibility that the Blast layer-2 blockchain might forcibly roll back the chain to "undo" the hack. Some have argued this is contra to the crypto ethos or would set a bad precedent, while others have argued that as a blockchain focused more on gaming and experimentation and less on decentralization and other facets of crypto ideology, it would be a reasonable step.
Some hours after the attack, the exploiter was convinced to return the funds.
TICKER project developer steals $900,000
A developer brought on to run a presale for the $TICKER token stole $900,000 from the project. 15% of the token supply was sent to the developer to distribute via an airdrop, but instead of doing so, the developer sold the majority of the tokens for around $900,000.
After the thief was identified by blockchain sleuth zachxbt, they posted a long message on Twitter, writing, "im not sorry for any of you, tbh. you are all morons if you believe all it needs to make it here is to send your money to a custodial address and get rich". The thief later spent some of the money on Milady NFTs and memecoins.
zachxbt stated that he had identified the developer, including his full name, location, and other details. He encouraged those who were scammed to contact him if they were interested in pursuing legal action.