A crypto whale based in Puerto Rico has initiated legal action against Coinbase this week, alleging that the exchange is withholding funds stolen from their account during a hack earlier this year. The specifics of the lawsuit are redacted, but the details match those of an August 2024 incident where more than $55 million worth of Ethereum’s DAI stablecoin was lost to a phishing scam.
The suit, submitted on Monday in San Francisco federal court, outlines how the whale employed several on-chain investigation firms post-hack. These investigators reportedly traced the stolen DAI back to a Coinbase account by early December 2024, with the exchange confirming it had frozen the funds for further inquiry.
Despite this progress, nearly eighteen months later, the crypto whale contends that they have yet to recover their assets and claim Coinbase insists on returning them only under court directive. Decrypt’s request for comment from Coinbase went unanswered.
The 2024 DAI theft was initially exposed by on-chain sleuth ZachXBT. The hackers employed a scheme called ‘Inferno Drainer’ to create a deceptive login page for DeFi Saver, prompting the victim to accidentally relinquish wallet control. This mistake led to the immediate transfer of DAI to various wallets and subsequent laundering through coin mixing services.
The plaintiff in this new lawsuit argues that they were duped by a fake site ending in ‘.app’ rather than the legitimate DefiSaver.com domain.