Reuters reports that Binance facilitated $2.35 billion in illicit transfers from 2017–2021
A Reuters investigation alleged that Binance "served as a conduit for the laundering of at least $2.35 billion in illicit funds" between 2017 and 2021. Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. Reuters tracked hundreds of millions in funds passing through a Russian darknet drugs market called Hydra thanks to Binance, and pointed to Binance as facilitating the laundering of money from German investment fraud schemes and North Korean cybercrime groups.
A wave of Discord moderator account hacks impacts multiple NFT-related servers
The June 4 compromise of the Bored Apes Discord was only one of several Discord hacks in a several-day period. All the attacks appeared to involve user accounts of individual moderators being compromised and used to post fake announcements that lured users of the server to phishing sites that stole NFTs. Discord servers for Yung Ape Squad, Apocalyptic Apes, Bubbleworld, and Aiternate were among the projects affected.
The Apocalyptic Apes Discord attackers stole around 21 NFTs. Bubbleworld attackers stole 171 NFTs, with combined floor prices amounting to around $243,000.
Decentralized exchange Maiar exploited for $113 million
Hackers were able to discover and exploit a bug in the decentralized exchange Maiar, stealing assets notionally worth $113 million. Maiar developers took the exchange offline soon after discovering the exploit, but not before the hackers made off with 1.65 million EGLD (the native token of the Elrond blockchain, on which Maiar is built). The sale of around $54 million of the pilfered EGLD caused the token to plummet from $76 to $5 on the Maiar exchange.
Maiar's founder and CEO has claimed that "most exploited funds have been either recovered in full, or will be covered by the Elrond Foundation", though it's not clear how (or if) any of the funds were recovered.
Collector loses ten pricey NFTs to phishing scam
An NFT collector hoping to claim NFTs from the Goblintown collection was phished, resulting in ten of their NFTs being stolen from them. The scammers took two Mutant Ape NFTs and eight Cool Cats. "They stole everything from me," the collector wrote. "I'm devastated".
The collector had bought or minted the NFTs at various points over the past year, spending a total of 84 ETH on the ten stolen NFTs (worth ~$312,000 based on ETH prices at the time of each purchase). The thief has so far flipped seven of the Cool Cats NFTs for a total of 34.5 ETH (~$62,000). This collector doesn't appear to be the phisher's only victim; their Ethereum wallet shows a total balance of $365,000.
Bored Apes Discord compromised again, 32 NFTs stolen and flipped for $360,000
Scammers were able to compromise the Discord account of a Bored Apes community manager, then use it to post an announcement of an "exclusive giveaway" to anyone who held a Bored Ape, Mutant Ape, or Otherside NFT. When users went to mint their free NFT, the scammers were able to steal their pricey NFTs. The scammer quickly flipped the stolen NFTs for a total of around 200 ETH (about $360,000), then began transferring funds to Tornado Cash.
The Bored Apes Discord was also compromised on April 1, along with those of several other big-name NFT projects.
New York legislators pass moratorium on permits for fossil fuel powered crypto mining operations
The New York state Senate passed a bill putting a two-year halt on issuing new or renewing existing permits for crypto mining at fossil fuel plants — a practice that has been happening near Seneca Lake and elsewhere in the state. The bill will also begin an environmental impact study on such facilities.
Next, the bill will go to Governor Hochul to sign or veto.
FTC reports $329 million lost to crypto scams in Q1 2022
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that "Although it's yet to become a mainstream payment method, reports to the FTC show [crypto is] an alarmingly common method for scammers to get peoples' money." They found that consumers have reported $329 million in fraud only in the first quarter of 2022: already half as much as was lost in the entire prior year.
The report also detailed that 25% of the monetary amount lost to fraud since the beginning of 2021 was lost via cryptocurrency, and that the median individual loss was around $2,600. Most of the crypto scams were investment frauds, followed by romance scammers and business and government impersonators.
- "Reports show scammers cashing in on crypto craze", Federal Trade Commission
Timechain allegedly attempts to falsely blame missing money on Terra collapse
The Canadian firm Timechain claimed that they lost around $4 million to the Terra collapse, a loss they said destroyed the company. Timechain claimed that a stop-loss mechanism that should have triggered in Binance to avoid such devastating losses never actually fired, resulting in a loss of more than 95%. However, Binance has reported that Timechain almost completely emptied their account before the Terra collapse.
- "Timechain et ses dirigeants font l’objet d’une enquête", La Presse (in French)
- "Dépouillés par une compagnie québécoise de cryptomonnaie", Le Journal de Montréal (in French)
Forest Tiger Pro rug pulls for tokens notionally worth more than $4.5 million
The TIGER project was supposed to be a DAO aiming to "support global technical teams" and protect wild animals and the environment. The project was broad-ranging, and had NFT, gaming, and defi components. Beginning on June 2, the project rug pulled 64,171 TIGER tokens notionally worth around $4.52 million. The TIGER token dropped by more than 50% following the first rug pull transaction, and transactions continued for another 20 days.
- "Tiger Incident Analysis", Certik
Animoon rug pulls for $6.3 million
Animoon is yet another Pokémon rip-off NFT project, with artwork that was ripped directly from Pokémon artwork and recolored. They claim to have a "signed NDA" with Pokémon (whatever that means), though it seems extremely unlikely that there's any real agreement granting them rights to use Pokémon IP.
Not only did their roadmap include play-to-earn game (of course), collaborations with a Swiss shoe and apparel store that would send them actual gear, and real-life trips, but they promised that 15 "legendary" cards would "automatically generate" their owners $2,500 each month, for life. The project was promoted by Jake Paul, an influencer whose crypto promotions don't have a great track record to say the least.
The project team began to grow more distant after launch, posting less frequently. Promised apparel shipments never arrived. The team changed the legendary rewards from $2,500 a month to "a percentage of incomes from the game", which they said "could be a lot more than $2500 monthly" despite no game actually existing. The project team eventually disappeared, took down the Twitter account and website, and disabled the general chat in their Discord project.