Unprecedented Surge in Scam Activities on Coinbase’s Base Chain in April

April witnessed a significant escalation in scam activities on Coinbase’s Base chain, highlighting its vulnerability within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Data from Scam Sniffer reveals that two of the top ten largest single thefts during this period occurred on this network, collectively constituting over 20% of April’s total cryptocurrency thefts.

While the broader crypto market experienced a decline in hacking incidents in April, certain networks, like Coinbase’s Base, saw increased scammer activity. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, the Base network suffered a 145% increase in such activities over the month. Since January, the network has seen an alarming 1,900% rise in scammer activities, leading to significant financial losses. Scammers primarily stole about $170,000 through phishing attacks, with nearly 90% of the pilfered assets comprising ERC-20 tokens. Notable phishing tactics that led to substantial losses included Permit, IncreaseAllowance, and Uniswap Permit2, according to Scam Sniffer’s analysis.

Despite the overall reduction in crypto attacks in April 2024, marking the first notable decrease this year, several high-profile thefts were recorded. The largest incident involved Hedgey Finance, a token infrastructure platform, which suffered a loss of approximately $47 million in cryptocurrencies. This was followed by a $3 million theft from Fix Float exchange due to a third-party service vulnerability, and a $2.67 million breach at Grand Base.

Since the onset of the year, the cryptocurrency industry has incurred over $401 million in losses due to hacks and rug pulls, marking a 25.1% reduction from the previous year, during which losses exceeded $536 million, as reported by Immunefi.

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