Coinbase accused by crypto sleuth zachxbt of allowing more than $300 million per year in social engineering attacks on its customers

Crypto sleuth zachxbt has accused the popular American cryptocurrency exchange coinbase of "fail[ing] to stop its users losing $300M+ per year to social engineering scams". He identified $65 million in crypto thefts from Coinbase in just the most recent two months, but noted that the "mumber 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."

zachxbt recounted how scammers routinely spoof phone numbers and use stolen personal information to gain trust with victims on phone calls, where they claim to be Coinbase employees informing users of unauthorized account access. They then walk victims through "securing" their accounts, but in reality they direct people to cloned versions of the Coinbase website where the victims are made to transfer their assets to the scammers.

zachxbt concluded, "Coinbase needs to urgently make changes as more and more users are being scammed for tens of millions every month. ... Coinbase is in a position where they have the power to make these changes and set a good example but they have chosen to do little to nothing ."