Clients of Coinbase lost $65 million in two months

From December last year to January 2025, clients of the Coinbase crypto exchange lost more than $65 million due to fraud involving social engineering. This was reported by on-chain detective ZachXBT.

One of the defrauded clients reached out to the detective, stating that she had around $850,000 stolen. An analysis of the money flow pointed to an address where the funds stolen from the Coinbase platform ended up.

"The scammer used personal information stolen from private databases to convince the victim that there were unauthorized login attempts to her account," said ZachXBT.

The attacker then sent a fake email on behalf of the exchange, asking the victim to add a certain address to the whitelist and transfer funds to it. The message contained a link to a fraudulent website that closely mimicked the original Coinbase platform.

The reported losses of $65 million over two months and $300 million per year are "far lower" than the actual figures, as they do not include claims filed with customer support and law enforcement.