Coinbase’s Base chain appears to be a target for scammers, with two of the top 10 largest single thefts occurring on the network, accounting for over 20% of the month’s total theft.
Although crypto hacks saw a decrease in April compared to previous months, some networks are experiencing a surge in scam activity as scammers explore new avenues to lure victims onto new platforms. According to data from Scam Sniffer, Coinbase’s Base network, built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, witnessed a 145% surge in scam activity in April.
— Scam Sniffer | Web3 Anti-Scam (@realScamSniffer) May 6, 2024🧵 [2/6] Despite the overall decline, theft on the Base chain saw a substantial increase of 145% from the previous month.
Notably, 2 of the top 10 largest single thefts occurred on this chain, accounting for 21% of the month's total theft. pic.twitter.com/kTwteJNhJu
According to the blockchain intelligence firm, the Base network witnessed a nearly 1,900% surge in scammer activity since January, with approximately $170,000 stolen due to phishing scams. In April alone, nearly 90% of the stolen assets were ERC-20 tokens, the standard for tokens on the Ethereum network. Common phishing signatures such as Permit, IncreaseAllowance, and Uniswap Permit2 were responsible for significant losses, Scam Sniffer says.
Despite the decline in crypto attacks in April, marking the first significant decrease in 2024, large incidents still occurred. The largest hack involved Hedgey Finance, a token infrastructure platform, losing approximately $47 million worth of crypto. The second-largest hack targeted the Fix Float exchange, resulting in the theft of $3 million worth of crypto due to a vulnerability in a third-party service provider. The third-largest attack on Grand Base enriched hackers with $2.67 million.
In total, more than $401 million was stolen due to hacks and rug pulls since the beginning of the year, a 25.1% decrease compared to the same period last year, when more than $536 million worth of hacks occurred, according to Immunefi.