CEO and co-founder of crypto mining and investment platform Mining Capital Coin (MCC) Luiz Capuci has been indicted by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) for “allegedly orchestrating a $62 million global investment fraud scheme.” The DOJ is charging Capuci with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit international money laundering in relation to several allegedly fraudulent schemes that were run via MCC. If found guilty, he faces a maximum prison sentence of 45 years. According to the DOJ’s indictment, Capuci, alongside unnamed co-conspirators, is accused of misleading investors over the profit-bearing …

The decentralized finance (DeFi) space has been rife with hacks, exploits and scams so far this year, with over $1.6 billion in crypto stolen from users, surpassing the total amount stolen in 2020 and 2021 combined. Analysis from blockchain security firm CertiK revealed the statistics on Monday showing the month of March having the most value stolen at $719.2 million, over $200 million more than what was stolen in all of 2020. The March figure is largely due to the Ronin Bridge exploit where attackers made off with over $600 million worth of crypto. We have seen $1.6B lost in …

As told by Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) developers on Monday, hackers breached the popular nonfungible token (NFT) collection’s official Instagram page and shared links to a fake airdrop with the project’s followers. Crypto enthusiasts who connected their MetaMask wallets to the scam website were subsequently drained of their Ape NFTs. It appears that the attack was planned to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the launch of the BAYC collection, thus increasing the “perceived credibility” of the phishing link. Unconfirmed reports on social media indicate that approximately 100 NFTs were stolen during the phishing attack. Based on data from …

ConsenSys-owned crypto wallet provider MetaMask has sent out a warning to the community regarding Apple iCloud phishing attacks. The security issue for iPhone, Mac and iPad users is related to default device settings which see a user’s seed phrase or “password-encrypted MetaMask vault” stored on the iCloud if the user has enabled automatic backups for their application data. In a Twitter thread posted on Monday, MetaMask noted that users run the risk of losing their funds if their Apple password “isn’t strong enough” and an attacker is able to phish their account credentials. To fix the issue, users can disable …

With a reported net worth of more than $300 billion, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said he could “technically afford” to purchase Twitter outright and also had plans to change the user experience of the major social media platform. In a TED Talk held at a TED conference in Vancouver on Thursday, Musk told curator Chris Anderson that if his offer to buy Twitter were successful, he would consider changing the way the platform handles controversial content by not promoting certain tweets and adding the ability to edit tweets as well as show that edit history. The Tesla CEO …

The research arm of cyber security software firm Check Point said it identified a vulnerability in the Rarible NFT marketplace that could have seen many of its roughly two million active monthly users lose their NFTs in a single transaction. Check Point is a multinational IT security firm that was founded in Ramat Gan, Israel in 1993 and also claimed to have spotted issues relating to malicious airdrops on OpenSea back in October 2021. According to documents shared with Cointelegraph, Check Point Research (CPR) recently discovered that malicious actors could send users a dubious link to an NFT that executes …

The non-fungible token (NFT) market has been booming since the summer of 2021 and as NFT prices were sky-rocketing, the number of hacks targeting NFTs were also increasing. The most recent high-profile hack siphoned approximately 600 Ether worth of NFTs from Arthur0x, the founder of DeFiance Capital, and they were sold off on OpenSea. A 2022 Crypto Crime Report published by Chainalysis highlighted that the value sent to NFT marketplaces by illicit addresses jumped significantly in 2021, topping out at just under $1.4 million. There is also a clear increase in stolen funds sent to NFT marketplaces. Given the concerning …

The U.K. government Treasury announced on Monday, April 4th, that it has asked the Royal Mint to create one non-fungible token (NFT) to be issued by the end of the year “as an emblem of the forward-looking approach the UK is determined to take.” Chancellor @RishiSunak has asked @RoyalMintUK to create an NFT to be issued by the summer. This decision shows the the forward-looking approach we are determined to take towards cryptoassets in the UK. pic.twitter.com/cd0tiailBK — HM Treasury (@hmtreasury) April 4, 2022 The NFT was part of a series of announcements by the Economic and Finance Ministry to …

Research by cyber security firm ESET has uncovered a “sophisticated scheme” that disseminates Trojan apps disguised as popular cryptocurrency wallets. The malicious scheme targets mobile devices using Android or Apple (iOS) operating systems which become compromised if the user downloads a fake app. According to ESET's research, these malicious apps are distributed through bogus websites, and imitate legitimate crypto wallets, including MetaMask, Coinbase, Trust Wallet, TokenPocket, Bitpie, imToken, and OneKey. The firm also discovered 13 malicious apps impersonating the Jaxx Liberty wallet, available on the Google Play Store. Google has since removed the offending apps, which were installed more than …

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken action against an alleged NFT rug pull, after it slapped the founders of the Frosties project with charges relating to fraud and money laundering. The two founders are accused of purposely concealing their identities to operate a rug pull on the Frosties community by failing to deliver on the project’s roadmap and “utility” which touted rewards for NFT hodlers, giveaways, access to a Metaverse game and exclusive access to future mints from the project. According to a March 24 release from the Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York, 20-year-olds Ethan …

There’s a poetic justice to scammers getting beat at their own game. A cryptocurrency scammer met their match when trying to trick Bitcoiner, Felix Crisan into sending them Tether (USDT). The scammer tried to impersonate John Carvalho, the CEO of Synonym, a Bitcoiner Cointelegraph regularly cites. The scammer, who we will call fake John from now on, wanted Crisan to send USDT, but Crisan–who’s been learning and getting involved with Bitcoin (BTC) for almost a decade–had other ideas: Today I've convinced a scammer to install a Lightning Network wallet. BTW @BitcoinErrorLog there's someone impersonating you on Telegram pic.twitter.com/Qd0I9pAney — felix …

It's a hard rock life for one crypto user. A clumsy keystroke and the actions of a sniper bot caused a million-dollar mistake on March 10. A rock valued at 444 ether (ETH), or $1.2 million, sold for 444 Wei ($0.0012) to a bot as the seller, DinoDealer confused WEI and ETH. In a tweet, the seller said “in one click my entire net worth of ~$1 million dollars, gone.” How's your week? Mine? I just erroneously listed @etherrock #44 for 444 wei instead of 444 eth‍♂️ Bot sniped it in the same block and trying to flip for 234 …