Web3 is Going Just Great

...and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already smoldering planet.

Created by Molly White. Subscribe to her newsletter for weekly recaps.

Self Chain fires founder after $50 million scam allegations

On June 19, a company called Aza Ventures published allegations on Telegram that they had been scammed by someone promising to facilitate OTC sales of steeply discounted tokens for projects like SUI and NEAR. They claimed they had discovered the whole scheme was a Ponzi.

Aza Ventures was initially hesitant to name the scammer, hoping they could pressure the scammer to return the stolen funds, but later reports quickly named Self Chain founder Ravindra Kumar as the alleged culprit. Kumar posted on June 19, "I've been accused of serious wrongdoing, which is completely false."

On June 23, Self Chain announced that they had terminated Kumar as CEO "due to recent developments that diverge from the founding vision".

Theme tags: Hack or scam

New York scammer "daytwo" steals $4 million from Coinbase users, blows most of it gambling

Christian Nieves, a New York man who goes by the handles "daytwo" and "PawsOnHips", has reportedly stolen more than $4 million through a theft ring where he impersonates Coinbase customer support. An investigation by crypto sleuth zachxbt outlined thefts from multiple Coinbase users, including one elderly victim who lost $240,000.

zachxbt noted that Nieves seems to have a gambling problem, depositing much of the stolen funds into crypto gambling websites. "You’ll see onchain how casino deposits get smaller as he loses funds," wrote zachxbt. "Recently this escalated to the point where he started stealing cuts from accomplices." He also appears to have used some of the stolen funds on luxury goods, including a Corvette and expensive watches.

Theme tags: Hack or scam

Hacken token crashes after private key leak

Web3 cybersecurity firm Hacken had a cybersecurity incident of their own when the private key belonging to a wallet with mint access for the project's $HAI token was leaked. According to Hacken, the leak was attributable to "human error during architectural changes". After a malicious party gained access to the key, they minted around 900 million $HAI on the Ethereum and BNB chains, almost doubling the total supply. The attacker only profited around $250,000, but they crashed the token price by around 97% in the process.
Theme tags: Hack or scam

Israeli-linked hackers steal and destroy $90 million from Iranian Nobitex exchange

The Iran-based Nobitex cryptocurrency exchange suffered a $90 million hack, and the attacker has also promised to imminently release data and source code from the platform. The hacking group appears to have burned the crypto assets, effectively destroying them rather than taking them for their own profits.

Gonjeshke Darande (also "Predatory Sparrow"), a hacking group with links to Israel, claimed responsibility for the theft, accusing the platform of serving as a "key regime tool" to finance terror and violate sanctions. The cyberattack comes shortly after Israel launched air strikes on Iran.

Theme tags: Hack or scam

Meta Pool exploited

An attacker exploited a vulnerability in the staking contract for Meta Pool, which is a liquid staking project. This allowed them to mint 9,700 mpETH, the project's liquid staking token, which is notionally worth $27 million. However, very low liquidity for the token meant that the attacker was only able to swap 10 ETH (~$25,000) of tokens.

Meta Pool acknowledged the theft in a post shortly after the exploit was noticed by a blockchain security firm, and announced that the team had paused the project's smart contract.

Theme tags: Hack or scam
Blockchain tags: Blockchain: Ethereum