Crypto Catastrophes: How $62 Million Vanished into Thin Air and Wallets

by

In January, a crypto enthusiast lost a staggering $12.25 million simply because they copied the wrong wallet address. I mean, who knew that copying and pasting could be so costly? In December, another poor soul joined the club of financial blunders, losing a jaw-dropping $50 million in a similarly tragicomic fashion. Together, these two episodes racked up a neat little sum of $62 million, as reported by the ever-watchful Web3 security solution, Scam Sniffer. It’s like a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks their computer skills are sharper than a butter knife.

Crypto Blunders

But wait, there’s more! Signature phishing attacks surged in January like a loaf of bread rising too fast. Scam Sniffer reported that $6.27 million was pilfered from 4,741 victims-a shocking 207% increase from December. I guess ‘Phishing Season’ is now a thing. The biggest fish in this pond were $3.02 million snatched from SLVon and XAUt through some fancy permit/increaseAllowance maneuver, and $1.08 million from aEthLBTC, also via permit. Clearly, these folks should have taken a course in ‘How to Not Lose Your Life Savings 101.’

Two wallets alone accounted for 65% of all phishing losses. That’s like saying two people at a party consumed 65% of the nachos-how is that even possible?

Address poisoning is a delightful scam where attackers send tiny transactions from wallet addresses that look suspiciously like real ones. It’s the digital equivalent of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, except the rabbit’s a wallet, and the trick is on you. Signature phishing takes it up a notch, convincing users to sign off on malicious approvals that allow attackers to waltz away with their funds later. It’s a veritable buffet of human error and social engineering, making even the most seasoned crypto veterans feel like they’re playing a game of chess with a pigeon.

Back in November, a crypto holder lost over $3 million worth of PYTH tokens when they accidentally sent funds to a scammer’s wallet. Apparently, this unfortunate soul decided to copy a fake deposit address from their transaction history-because who needs verification when you have a keyboard? Blockchain analysts at Lookonchain noted that the attacker cleverly created a lookalike address that matched the first four characters of the real wallet. They sent a minuscule SOL transaction to gain credibility, and before you know it, our friend transferred a whopping 7 million PYTH tokens without double-checking the address. Poof! Gone like a magician’s assistant.

Coordinated Multisig Scam Attempt

As if that wasn’t enough, the non-custodial wallet, Safe (formerly known as Gnosis Safe), issued a red alert about a massive address poisoning and social engineering campaign targeting multisig wallets. Apparently, attackers were busy creating thousands of lookalike Safe addresses to trick unsuspecting users into sending their hard-earned money to an unintended destination. Safe clarified that this incident wasn’t a protocol exploit or infrastructure breach; it was just good old-fashioned deception. They identified around 5,000 malicious addresses, which have since been flagged and removed from the Safe Wallet interface-because nothing says ‘trust me’ like a digital bouncer at the wallet door.

Read More

2026-02-10 01:50