Crooks Steal $45 Million from Coinbase Clients in Just One Week

In the past week, fraudsters have stolen $45 million from Coinbase users through social engineering tactics, according to on-chain investigator ZachXBT.

*“Over the past few months, I have recorded thefts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. No other major cryptocurrency exchange has similar vulnerabilities,”* the expert stated.

As reported by ZachXBT on February 3, this issue is part of a broader, systemic problem at Coinbase: since the beginning of the year, victims of scams have lost more than $300 million.

The method of attack remains consistent: scammers pose as customer support representatives, convincing victims to provide access to their accounts or to transfer funds to external wallets.

Philippe Martin, Coinbase’s chief security officer, has called for the establishment of a centralized registry to monitor fraudulent activities. He believes this would streamline the analysis of threats and enhance user protection.

*“This would help direct resources from the entire federal government toward more proactive measures to address some of the root causes,”* Martin added.

It’s worth noting that users reported phishing emails in March, where scammers posed as Coinbase representatives, urging individuals to transfer their assets to new wallets using pre-generated seed phrases.