Coinbase, the largest US Bitcoin exchange platform has come out to say that the company was able to block the exchange of Bitcoin to the cryptocurrency address attached to the tweets sent out by hackers, using Twitter accounts of prominent personalities.
Forbes reported that the Bitcoin exchange company was able to stop 1,100 users from sending Bitcoin to the scammers’ Bitcoin wallet.
By blocking 1,100 users from sending Bitcoin to the scammers’ cryptocurrency wallet, Coinbase was able to prevent the exchange of about 30.4 Bitcoin; this amount to about two hundred and eighty thousand USD ($280,000).
Coinbase, is the largest Bitcoin exchange platform in the US, having about 35 million users.
A spokesperson of Coinbase was reported by Verge to have said:
“We noticed the scam and began blocking transactions within a couple of minutes of the initial wave of scam posts”.
Philip Martin, Chief information officer of Coinbase, was reported to have said that Coinbase became suspicious after they saw tweets coming from the Twitter handle of fellow Bitcoin exchange accounts.
Philip Martin continued to reveal that only 14 Coinbase users were able to transfer Bitcoin to the scammers’ address, before the wallet was blacklisted. The transfer made by the 14 Coinbase users amount to about $3,000.
Other Bitcoin exchange platform like Gemini, Binance, and Kraken, also said they proceeded to blacklist the Bitcoin wallet, and block cryptocurrency flow into the account, as soon as they detected foul play.
Although, the Bitcoin exchange accounts claimed some of their users had already made transfer to the scam account, the amount transferred by users of these exchange platforms, was not as much as the amount transferred by Coinbase users.
The Twitter account of Gemini and Binance was also targeted in the wave of Twitter Hack that affected several Twitter accounts on Wednesday. Coinbase’s Twitter account was also reported to have been targeted.
It would be recalled that last week, we reported a wave of Twitter Hack that affected the Twitter accounts of prominent personalities in the society. The hackers sent out tweets about a supposed Bitcoin giveaway by doubling the amount of cryptocurrency sent to an attached cryptocurrency wallet.
Twitter is still investigating the hack and the damage that could have ensued from the security breach.