- Phishing scam thefts on the Ethereum layer 2 Base are up 1900% from January to March according to Web3 anti-scam platform Scam Sniffer
- Around $33.5 million was stolen from phishing scammers on Base in March alone, marking a 1880% spike compared to January’s $1.69 million
- Despite the surge in phishing scams, overall crypto hack thefts fell 48% to $187.2 million in March, with almost $98.8 million recovered
Base has seen an explosion in phishing scam thefts this year, with March figures showing an 18-fold increase compared to January according to recent data.
Massive Increase in Phishing Losses on Base
Approximately $335 million was stolen from phishing scammers on Base in March alone, according to blockchain anti-scam platform Scam Sniffer. This marks a 334% month-on-month increase from February’s tally of $773,900, and a massive 1880% spike compared to January when Base only lost $169,000 from phishing scams, according to monthly Dune Analytics data compiled by Scam Sniffer.
Binance’s BNB Chain observed a similar surge in phishing scams in March, Scam Sniffer noted in an April 2 blog post.
Total Crypto Losses Across All Chains Also Up
Approximately $715 million was lost to phishing scammers across all chains from 77,529 victims, beating out January and February’s tallies of $583 million and $468 million respectively, Scam Sniffer noted.
Scam Sniffer noted that phishing links from fake crypto accounts remain a primary tactic, for which it detected over 1,500 incidents in March.
Rise in Scams Despite Drop in Hacks
The surge comes despite crypto hack thefts falling 48% to $1.872 billion in March, according to an April 1 blog post from blockchain security firm PeckShield.
Almost all of those recoveries came from the $97 million Munchibles exploit. Cryptocurrency sleuth ZachXBT was among those onboarded as a custodian to recover the stolen funds.
Meanwhile, Curve’s MakerDAO-based smart contract lost $40 million according to updated figures from Peckhield, and Prisma Finance fell victim to an $116 million hack. The firm is currently negotiating with the hacker on-chain to return those funds.
Base TVL Also Surging
The rise in Base phishing scams comes amid a recent memecoin craze on the Coinbase-backed chain. It has helped push Base’s total value locked above $32 billion, marking a 370% increase so far in 2023, according to L2BEAT.
