State of Crypto: Somebody Attempted to Rip-off Me (Most Likely)
I got a call from someone declaring to represent Coinbase, wishing to assist me secure my account. Coinbase will not call clients to alert them that their accounts may have been compromised. It’s a common scam vector. Still, someone tried it on me. You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the crossway of cryptocurrency and government. Account compromise The narrative Last weekend, an unidentified California number called me. A useful gentleman informed me that my Coinbase account had been jeopardized during its recent data breach and he was there to help me in not losing my assets. Oh no, the horror! Why it matters All right, so obviously this is a scam. Right after hanging up with this supposed aid desk representative, I texted a Coinbase representative to verify that at no point would the exchange call a customer to tell them their account was jeopardized. It’s fraud 101– if you’re getting a call informing you that your account’s been jeopardized, whether at a crypto exchange, a bank, the IRS, whatever, it’s a scam. Do not share your personal information and do not give any passwords if you get a call like this. There were a few flaws in the effort to get me to, presumably, move my funds from my apparently jeopardized Coinbase account to another address. However, I’m hopeful that this can be a beneficial teaching moment for the nearly 70,000 individuals who have been affected by Coinbase’s recent breach disclosure, as well as anyone else who gets a phone call claiming their info has been compromised. Here’s how this went down. Breaking it down Let’s start from the start. On Saturday, May 24, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize to my personal phone, not my public-facing work number. It being a weekend, one where I was actually visiting family in another state, I didn’t pick up. The same number called back and I still didn’t pick up (yes I know, interesting, but it’s 2025 and you can leave a voicemail or text). Ten minutes later, I got a third call from a different number, which I did pick up because at that point I was curious. A fast-talking gentleman who called himself Riccardo told me he was part of Coinbase’s Actions and Protections Department and that he was reaching out because my Coinbase account information had been compromised and a new email had just been added to my account. I was pretty confused, for reasons I’ll get into below. I was also interested because there were immediately four red flags. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll describe the caller as “the agent” from here on out, but to be absolutely clear, I doubt he is an actual customer service agent, representative, or other employee of Coinbase, and he certainly was not reaching out to me as an authorized representative of the exchange. First off, the phone call itself is a huge red flag. Coinbase will never call a customer about a breach, but rather will contact customers via email, it previously said in a tweet. This is really standard. The Federal Trade Commission website notes there is a vast array of scams where someone will call you, and many other companies have warnings that their employees will never proactively call a customer about account issues. The representative I spoke with said they would freeze my account for 24 hours to ensure no funds could be stolen (thanks, I think?) and that a manager would reach out to me (I continue to wait for this manager to call). This supposed freeze on my account can be extended to three months if there are multiple failed login attempts. To wrap up the call, he said he’d send me an email summarizing all the information we’d discussed. On Saturday night, I got an email with the subject line “your case is under review.” The follow-up email this very helpful customer service agent sent was incredibly informative. For one thing, the email address they had associated with my account is a public-facing address but is not the email address attached to my actual Coinbase account (in fairness, I forgot that part until I searched for my login details a few days later). Gmail initially (correctly) flagged this email as spam. I moved it to my inbox, where Gmail then showed me that the sender ([email protected]) was not the actual sender– the email arrived through learnindonesian.online. Even the info-coinbase.com part is sketchy– for one thing, Coinbase’s website is coinbase.com, though it does send emails from [email protected]– still, you wouldn’t expect a hyphen in a support email domain. For another, the info-coinbase domain was first created in November 2024 (according to an ICANN lookup) and isn’t a real website. The email headers were also not incredibly helpful in terms of providing any sort of identifying information, but they did confirm that the sender appeared to have tried to obfuscate their information. Curiously, the “Go to Coinbase” link at the bottom appeared to link to the actual Coinbase site, and there don’t appear to be any hidden embedded images or other attached files in the email at all. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on there. A real scammer might have embedded a virus of some sort into the email or even a tracking pixel. Another common tool scammers may use is inserting a phishing link in place of a legitimate one in an email, tricking the user into visiting a site intended to steal their login details (this is not legal, technical, or any other sort of advice; if you choose to try and scam someone using information you obtained from this newsletter, stop it). While scammers may sometimes know how much their intended victims have in a wallet or account, the person who called me did not appear to have that information (as I have absolutely no crypto in my Coinbase account). I called the number back on Friday to see what might happen. No one answered. I think my account should be secure now. Stories you might have missed Stand With Crypto Removes Soulja Boy From NJ Governor Rally After Discovering Sexual Assault Conviction: Stand With Crypto announced Soulja Boy and 070 Shake would headline a “get out the vote rally” next week ahead of New Jersey’s governor primary election. SWC removed Soulja Boy a day later after discovering he was found guilty of sexual battery and assault charges and ordered to pay $4 million last month, in a case stemming from 2021. SEC Task Force Chief Says Crypto Traders Need to be Adults, Not Cry to Government: SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce told the Bitcoin 2025 Las Vegas audience that it’s fine to invest in speculative assets, especially if there’s no federal regulator with close oversight, but those investors can’t cry for a bailout when prices sink. U.S. House Republicans Officially Introduce Crypto Market Structure Bill: House Republicans have officially introduced the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, its market structure bill, just weeks after circulating a discussion draft. Crypto Staking Does Not Violate U.S. Securities Law, SEC Says: The SEC’s latest staff statement looks at staking and how the securities regulator may evaluate that part of the crypto ecosystem. SEC Files to Dismiss Long-Running Lawsuit Against Binance: The SEC and Binance filed a joint stipulation to dismiss the regulator’s case against Binance. Suspects in Manhattan Crypto Kidnapping, Torture Case Plead Not Guilty as Investigation Widens: News broke over the weekend that a crypto investor had been kidnapped and tortured for his Bitcoin keys. Two suspects accused of committing the kidnapping have been arrested and pleaded not guilty. Trump’s Memecoin Dinner Questioned by Top Democrat on House Judiciary Committee: Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump urging him to disclose the names of his guests at last week’s memecoin dinner. This week Friday 15:00 UTC (11:00 a.m. ET) A federal judge held a telephone hearing to review Roman Storm’s defense argument that the Department of Justice may have withheld information. The judge ruled that in her view, the DOJ did not have to review its materials and had not withheld information that rose to the level of affecting proceedings. Elsewhere: (The Washington Post) The White House released a “Make America Healthy Again” report that cited nonexistent studies and recommendations– with indications that AI might have been used to generate at least some parts of the report. (The Federal Reserve) The Fed said 8% of adults who responded to a survey said they held cryptocurrency in the U.S., down from 12% four years ago. If you have thoughts or suggestions on what I should cover next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at [email protected] or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde. You can also join the group discussion on Telegram. See you next week!
