A group notorious for perpetrating blockchain scams has shifted roughly $1 million to the Blast platform, according to on-chain detective ZachXBT. This movement of allegedly laundered funds is believed to be intended for financing new fraudulent activities.
Update: Same scammers are also likely behind @ZebraLending on Base which is currently live with $311K TVL
Withdraw your assets immediately if you have funds deposited in this protocol.
Tracing:
- 0x085 transfers 30 wETH to 0x9f8 on Base… pic.twitter.com/Hv0v70azA7
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) April 14, 2024
The group has a history of targeting platforms like Magnate, Kokomo, and Lendora, leaving investors high and dry after stealing significant sums. Analysts believe these funds were initially funneled from an Ethereum address linked to prior scams before being transferred to a separate address on the Polygon network.
The ill-gotten gains were then converted into Wrapped ETH (wETH), a token pegged to the value of Ethereum, and subsequently moved across various blockchains using bridging services like Orbiter and Bungee. Bridging services essentially allows users to transfer crypto assets between different blockchains.
This news follows a major exploit on Blast itself. On March 26th, a non-fungible token (NFT) game called Munchables, built on Blast, suffered a staggering $62 million exploit. While Munchables has acknowledged the breach and is attempting to track down the culprit, the incident highlights the platform’s vulnerability.
Furthermore, the Blast network itself witnessed a significant exodus of funds following the launch of its mainnet on February 29th. This launch unlocked nearly $2.3 billion worth of staked crypto that was previously locked up on the network, leading to roughly $400 million in Ether being withdrawn from the Ethereum layer-2 network.
