The rollercoaster journey of the crypto world had another loop-the-loop moment recently when Coinbase‘s new layer 2, Base, became the platform of choice for an alarming number of scammers only a week after its launch. The particular incident that triggered the alarm was associated with the crypto lender, SwirlLend. This entity, previously active on Base and Linea, walked off with a significant amount of cryptocurrency, affecting Base’s new ecosystem’s trustworthiness and resulting in mounting losses for the platform users. This SwirlLend scam is the second in just a span of few days, with losses on the platform already reaching into millions.
The scenario unfolded as SwirlLend transferred around $289,500 worth of cryptocurrency from Base. It then transferred 94 Ether from Linea, another platform, effectively bridging the crypto to Ethereum. The scam didn’t end there. A new token was created by SwirlLend, and a hefty 253.2 ETH was laundered through the Tornado Cash crypto mixer. Adding to the nefarious activities, SwirlLend has since closed down its social media accounts and website. Its total value locked on Base has catastrophically fallen from howling $784,300 to a mere $49,200.
The Base network, which has seen the rug pulled out from under it not once, but twice, with the Base project RocketSwap decentralized exchange suffering an $865,000 exploit just two days prior. Lamentably, the first scam happened even before the platform was officially open to the public – the BALD coin suffered an 85% loss of its value after the developer manipulated liquidity and made purchases.
A blog post further added to the gloom by alerting us of more potential hazards for Base. Solidus Labs, a crypto trade surveillance service, spotted over 500 scam tokens on Base, among which were 300 tokens with hidden functions to mint unlimited numbers of tokens. An additional 70 concealed transaction fees and 60 prohibited buyers from reselling their tokens. Scammers on Base have already netted $2 million worth of crypto, in addition to “soft” rug pulls such as BALD, which are estimated to have cost users $5.2 million.
Conclusion
Securing a robust framework for cybersecurity measures in the crypto realm is a necessity. Security concerns will always accompany technological advancements and innovations like blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The challenge ahead is for these innovative platforms to anticipate these threats reliably and maintain the trust users place in them to provide a safe trading ecosystem. As we’ve seen, the risks are real and costly. Vigilance and caution in navigating this novel space will go a long way toward securing one’s investments.
Source: Cointelegraph
