Hacker exposed
A prominent figure in the cryptocurrency community has been accused of stealing over $4m from Coinbase users to feed his gambling addiction.
using a social engineering scam to steal millions of dollars
In a thread on X, a popular crypto account, ZachXBT, posted a lengthy thread accusing Christian Nieves, who goes by the alias DayTwo, of using a social engineering scam to steal millions of dollars from unsuspecting Coinbase account holders.
ZachXBT also claimed that Nieves was a gambling addict who stole the money to feed his addiction, as well as spending the proceeds on luxury items such as cars.
Confidence trick
Coinbase has had some security challenges over its existence, but in this case, the site wasn’t at fault. Social engineering scams work by tricking users into revealing highly sensitive data by posing as support staff or other trustworthy figures.
Zach posted a video, which he claimed to have privately obtained, of an elderly caller having $240,000 stolen by Nieves’ call centre, which he ran to carry out the lucrative thefts.
Zach then claimed that Nieves “has a gambling problem” and that the money was likely financing his losses, adding: “you’ll see onchain how casino deposits get smaller as he loses funds.”
He also went on to claim that in addition to stealing from unsuspecting users, Nieves even turned on his accomplices by skimming off cuts that were due to them as proceeds from the scams.
The thread also went into detail about how the funds were laundered, with further videos shared discussing the laundering process, which was partly moved into Monero, a cryptocurrency which prioritizes privacy and untraceability.
Identity revealed
Lastly, with Nieves posting a story on Instagram showing him sticking up the middle finger to ZachXBT’s account, his personal name was revealed. On the leaked calls, many of the scammers repeatedly showed their faces and full names during the recordings.
“It’s rare we see a social engineering scammer with such blatant disregard to mask their identity while flexing stolen funds all over social media,” Zach concluded.
“As Daytwo is not a minor it’s a rather easy case for law enforcement to pursue. Sadly, any recovery for victims is likely a small amount given the funds were mostly gambled away after thefts.”
