Bitcoiners blamed the German government, CoinStats Lazarus and others
Bitcoiners are pulling the German government's BTC wallet
German bitcoin wallet recovers from near-zero balance
A group of Bitcoin trolls have been peppering the German government's once-empty Bitcoin wallet with small donations over the past 48 hours – some using vanity addresses to send lewd messages.
After selling less than 50,000 Bitcoin (BTC) — $3 billion at current prices — over the past few weeks, the German government's bitcoin wallet hit a new low on July 12.
However, between July 12 and July 14, several Bitcoiners took it upon themselves to attempt a prank by sending more than $330 worth of BTC, according to blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence.
Several of the original sender's Bitcoin wallet addresses provided ‘nonsense' names, including addresses starting with “1Fuckyou” and “1ELonMUSK”.
The Lazar Group may be behind the recent CoinStats hack.
Crypto portfolio manager Koinstats said Lazar Group, a notorious hacking consortium linked to North Korea, was likely behind the June 22 hack that caused $2.2 million in losses on 1590 wallets.
In a July 12 statement, CoinStats said, “We have gathered sufficient evidence to believe the attack was linked to the Alazarus group or a related organization with state-of-the-art sophistication and resources.”
CoinStats explained that the hackers accessed several key parts of their infrastructure and third-party service providers, including HashiCorp Vault, which houses wallets and APIs.
On June 26, CoinStats CEO Narek Givorgyan said he believed an employee was the victim of a sophisticated social engineering attack after seeing him download malicious software onto a work device.
CoinStats confirms that all affected software and infrastructure have been removed and that the investigation of the exploit is ongoing.
Canadians lose $373,000 to deep fake crypto scams
Three Canadians have reportedly lost a combined $373,000 in a deep crypto scam involving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Tesla CEO Elon Musk promising guaranteed returns on crypto investments.
Ontario man Mohamed Haque told CTV News Toronto on July 12 that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came across a video on social media about how people can get strong returns by investing in the crypto market.
Hack claimed to have invested a total of $226,000 through the fraudulent scheme, and at one point the account showed that he had accumulated a total portfolio of $445,000.
Related: Coinbase's Stand With Crypto initiative to launch in Canada
However, when he tried to withdraw the money, he found that he could not access the money and that he had been defrauded of the entire amount of his initial investment.
Mississauga man Darrell Budnik claims he was defrauded of $130,000 after investing in a bogus crypto investment scheme after seeing a similar AI-generated video on social media.
Another Hamilton, Ontario man, Giovanni Pugliano, has invested in a crypto project that originated from Elon Musk's deep-fake YouTube video – also promising higher returns than smaller investments in the crypto market.
“I started putting in a lot more than I expected and all of a sudden I'm broke,” Pugliano told CTV News, adding that his losses totaled around $17,000.
More than $148 million in fraudulent investment losses were reported across Canada in the first six months of 2024 — the majority stemming from fraudulent crypto schemes — according to data from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
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