Coinbase exploiter flexed crypto and a monkey after $16m heist

A scammer known as “Excite” displayed stolen wealth and a real monkey after a Coinbase Trading contract facilitated $15.9 million in suspicious withdrawals.

According to blockchain researcher ZachXBT, threat actors siphoned approximately $16 million from the Coinbase Commerce contract through 1,700 transactions on the Polygon layer-2 scaling network in April 2024.

Perpetrators bridged the stolen (USDC) from Polygon to Ethereum before distributing the assets across multiple wallet addresses; This is a common tactic used by crypto thieves to confuse on-chain followers.

1/ Earlier this year, a Coinbase Trading contract in April 2024 saw $15.9 million in suspicious outflows, indicating a trader was potentially being exploited.

Shortly after, a threat actor nicknamed ‘Excite’ began showing the stolen coins in chats.

Let’s dive in. pic.twitter.com/srM7ksPXPa

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) December 10, 2024

ZachXBT explained that most of the funds remained dormant in X but some were deposited into eXch and Stake, a crypto staking platform.

In May, a Telegram user named “tezedasads12” announced that he was the owner of a wallet containing $6 million obtained from the hack. The individual also claimed control of the “Excite” Instagram page, which displayed a monkey and luxury watches allegedly purchased in Denmark with stolen money.

Although the identity of the victim in this case is unknown, it is clear that a strong lead exists that could hold this threat actor legally responsible. I hope others can get involved because of how the funds are split three ways. One question I have is why Coinbase’s AML monitoring system did not flag this suspicious activity within 16 hours.

ZachXBT on X

ZachXBT has uncovered several Coinbase-related thefts in recent months. In November, on-chain researchers uncovered $6.5 million stolen from a Coinbase user. Suspected crypto fraudster Ronald Spektor deactivated his social media pages shortly after the news broke, fueling speculation that he was involved.

ZachXBT helped a senior citizen regain his lifetime Bitcoin (BTC) savings of $275,000. The victim, a Coinbase customer, was deceived by Indian impersonators.

Investigations published by ZachXBT led to arrests in a $238 million crypto heist. According to an August report, a single Genesis creditor was defrauded by fake Coinbase support representatives and scammers stole 4,064 BTC.