Blockchain security company CertiK released a report today indicating that investors lost over $60 million in May to scams and exploits. The total amount of money lost to malicious players in the crypto industry since the start of the year now stands at $489 million.
According to CertiK April’s report, about $103 million was lost to scammers and hackers that month. So May’s figure represents a massive reduction compared to April.
Major Attacks in May
A fake crypto investment platform named Morgan DF Fintoch made away with $31 million in customer funds on May 21. Zachxbt, a well-known on-chain observer, tweeted a day before that the team behind Morgan DF Fintoch had bridged the funds held in USDT from Binance Smart Chain to Ethereum and TRON, suggesting that the project was rug-pulling its users.
Users confirmed Zachxbt’s claims after they began complaining about not being able to withdraw their money. Morgan DF Fintoch promised investors that they would earn 1% per day or 365% yearly. Moreover, it turned out that the project had paid someone to pretend to be its CEO.
On May 27, Decentralized Finance protocol Jimbos lost more than 3,500 ETH following a flash loan exploit. Blockchain analytics company PeckShield reported that the attacker exploited vulnerabilities in the project’s code to make away with millions in ETH. Before the attack, PeckShield said it had alerted the DeFi protocol of a possible exploit.
Now Jimbos says it’s cooperating with the authorities to recover the funds after the attacker ignored the 10% bounty offer.
On May 22, The Tornado Cash DAO faced a governance attack that saw holders of TORN record massive losses after the token declined by over 45% following the news. That day, another DAO, DEUS, lost $6 million after a hacker accessed the organization’s treasury.
Further, CertiK said investors lost significant money in May to meme coin scams. For example, on May 19, a copycat of the token $PSYOP was launched by a pseudonymous developer with the Twitter username @3orovik. The $PSYOP original creator @ben.eth raised the alarm a day later, but it was a little late because some degens had already bought the copycat token. As of this writing, It’s still unclear much @3orovik stole from holders.
Moreover, some crypto users have also labeled @ben.eth’s token a scam. They accuse the creator of artificially hiking his meme coin’s price.
Hackers and Scammers Use Coin Mixers to Launder Stolen Funds
CertiK revealed that most of the illegally obtained money was moved to coin mixers to obscure their movements. As per the report, 8,400 BNB and 950 ETH were transferred to Tornado Cash, 200 BNB to ChangeNow and 430 BNB to Fixed Float.
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