A wallet drainer operating on The Open Network (TON) has announced its shutdown due to a perceived lack of crypto whales within the community.

In a message shared on October 7 by Web3 anti-scam solution Scam Sniffer, the hackers indicated that the small size of the TON user base was detrimental to their operations.

The drainer, which had been targeting TON users, directed its clients toward a different service focused on draining Bitcoin instead. The announcement stated, “Due to TON not having whales and it being a small community, we will close.”

The hackers suggested that those who enjoyed draining assets on TON would likely find Bitcoin to be a more lucrative alternative.

In recent months, there has been a notable increase in interest from drainers in the TON ecosystem. Raz Niv, co-founder of Blockaid, remarked in a prior interview that the value flowing through TON has attracted more malicious actors.

The drainer's operations included tactics such as baiting users with fraudulent transactions promising large sums, such as a fake offer of 5,000 USDT.

Scam Sniffer highlighted that this particular scam utilized TON's comment feature to disguise its true intent, leading victims to unknowingly authorize transactions that drained their wallets. In May, it was reported that similar tactics had already drained 22,000 Toncoin, valued at over $150,000 at that time.

Phishing attacks in September alone resulted in approximately $46.6 million in losses across 10,800 victims.

A significant portion of this amount stemmed from a single phishing transaction that drained over $32 million in crypto, underscoring the growing threat of such scams in the digital asset space.