Hackers and scammers earned nearly $130 million in stolen funds in October.
Online crypto casino MetaWin was hacked for $4 million just hours before M2 was hacked for $13 million.
A Colorado resident was scammed of tens of thousands of dollars before authorities intervened.
US Rapper Wiz Khalifa’s X account was hacked and used to promote another scam memecoin.
The week is barely three days old, and millions have already been siphoned in the crypto industry.
Most of these funds came from high-profile hacks that devastated platforms, investors, and public figures.
This comes amid reports from CertiK about how bad actors stole $129M from hacks and exit scams in October 2024 alone.
Total stolen in October
Here are the biggest updates, including the theft of $4.2 million between Sunday and Monday this week.
On Sunday, 3 November, MetaWin fell victim to a cyber attack that drained a massive $4 million from its hot wallets.
MetaWin is an online, crypto-friendly casino that has gained popularity in 2024.
Responding to the incident, MetaWin’s CEO, popularly known as Skel, reported on Discord that the attackers took advantage of the platform’s “frictionless withdrawal” feature.
This gave them unauthorized access to the platform’s hot wallets and enabled them to cart the funds off.
MetaWin was eventually forced to temporarily suspend all customer withdrawals to contain the attack and safeguard its remaining assets.
Despite this setback, Skel mentioned that the casino has already "topped off" the affected funds.
As of Monday, around 95% of customers could process withdrawals once again—however, this isn’t all.
According to blockchain analyst ZachXBT, the stolen funds were transferred to KuCoin and HitBTC—two centralized exchanges.
A 4 million hack
This hacker—whoever they were, had over 115 addresses linked to them, making it significantly harder to track the funds.
Interestingly, merely hours after the a MetaWin hack, M2 also reported a $13 million loss from a hacker getting to its hot wallets.
In another incident this week, a Colorado resident was scammed out of $6,000 in Bitcoin.
The criminals responsible for this incident reportedly posed as law enforcement officers and stole the funds using an elaborate phone spoofing technique.
They made a phone call to the unnamed victim and threatened to arrest them for allegedly missing jury duty.
According to the Summit County Sheriff's Office, these scammers persuaded the victim to send Bitcoin as "bail" to clear the warrant.
Soon after the victim sent the initial $6,000, an additional $4,000 transfer was about to go through before actual deputies intervened.
Interestingly, this incident is very similar to others in Colorado, especially where fraudsters impersonate officials to trick citizens into paying them Bitcoin.
There were over 1,300 cases, with a combined $81 million stolen in 2023 alone.
The state's crypto fraud rate has become so serious that Colorado is ranked 15th in the US for crypto-related crimes.
On 3 November, the same day MetaWin and M2 lost $4 million and $15 million, respectively, American rapper Wiz Khalifa's X account was hacked.
Y'all are not ready for what's coming.
As expected, the hackers immediately used the compromised account to shill a new memecoin called “WIZ” to his 35.7 million followers.
In a now-deleted post, the hackers tweeted that Khalifa had just approved the $WIZ token for “crypto fans.”
The hackers tweeted, "I've Been working with my team to drop $WIZ for all the crypto fans!" They added, "Y’all not ready for what’s coming."
This scam tweet caused an immediate surge in the token’s market cap to a staggering $3.4 million within minutes.
Within the hour, the token’s market cap dropped from $3.2 million to $28,000 as early adopters quickly dumped their holdings.
The same scammer who hacked Ayrey
Interestingly, according to ZachXBT in a Telegram post, this hack came from the same person who compromised Andy Ayrey's account only a few days before.
Ayrey, the founder of Truth Terminal, had his Twitter account hacked, and he used it to steal between $600 and $1.5 million from unsuspecting investors.
Data from DexScreener shows that the token's market cap has plummeted further to $10,000, with an ongoing 98% price crash.
According to data from Solscan, the two top wallets (likely belonging to the hackers) bought around 155 million WIZ tokens at launch for $19,100.
They then sold all for a combined profit of around $160,000.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information but will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.