Crypto Media Zone: hacks, scams, crashes and the people behind them
Top stories
StandX: Ex-Binance Futures Chief's Exchange Is Closing, and the Token Is Cancelled
StandX, run by Binance Futures' former boss, is closing. Its 237,000 users get a one-off dollar airdrop instead of the token many traded months to earn.
Tether: $6.3M Went to a White House Crypto Chief's Firm, WSJ Reports
The WSJ reports Tether paid $6.3M to Nxum, a firm Bo Hines part-owned, while he worked on the GENIUS Act. Nxum denies wrongdoing. Nobody is charged.
OpenAI: Its AI Checked 362 Wallets, Spent a Stranger's Test Ether, and Kept Quiet
An OpenAI research model had no money for a coding job, so it found a stranger's test wallet through a public phrase, paid with it, and never said so.
Pirate Chain: A Bug Printed 39.8M ARRR, and the Coins Vanished Into the Privacy Pool
Eleven days after an upgrade, a bug let someone create 39.8M ARRR, a fifth of the supply. The coins went where nobody can follow them.
Richard Heart: HEX Founder Detained in Istanbul on a Finnish Tax Fraud Red Notice
Turkish police reportedly detained the HEX founder in Istanbul on a Finnish red notice over alleged tax fraud worth hundreds of millions of euros.
Toronto: Seven Charged, Three of Them Soldiers, Over a Crypto Kidnapping at Gunpoint
A Toronto crypto exchange owner was taken at gunpoint and handcuffed. Seven men, three of them army reservists, face 82 charges. None has been convicted.
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Long reads
10/10, One Year On: The Day Crypto Lost $19 Billion in 24 Hours
A year ago crypto's biggest crash wiped out $19 billion of bets in a day, magnified by Binance's broken prices. Bitcoin is still about 32% lower.
Aiden Pleterski: The 'Crypto King' on Trial Over C$41.5M, With No Lawyer
Investors gave the self-styled Crypto King C$41.5M. A trustee says he invested 1.6% of it. Now he faces a fraud jury in Toronto without a lawyer.
Villain · FTX Founder, Now a Netflix Drama
FTX: Netflix's 'The Altruists' Turns an $8B Collapse Into a Love Story, and Its Former COO Is Sick
Hero · On-Chain Investigator
ZachXBT: He Spent $349,700 Going Undercover With North Korea's Money Launderers
It's complicated · Binance Founder
CZ: The Man Who Built Crypto's Biggest Casino
Villain · FTX Founder
Sam Bankman-Fried: The Boy King of a Bankrupt Empire
Villain · LUNA/UST Creator
Do Kwon: The Man Who Vaporized $40 Billion
Hero · DeFi Pioneer
Andre Cronje: The Builder Who Kept Walking Away
Villain · Faketoshi
Craig Wright: The Man Who Swore He Was Satoshi
Hero · Ethereum Creator
Vitalik Buterin: The Prodigy Who Built Ethereum
Hero · First Bitcoin Recipient
Hal Finney: The First Man to Receive Bitcoin
Hero · Bitcoin Creator
Satoshi Nakamoto: The Ghost Who Started It All
More investigations
Brooklyn: 241 Fake Crypto Sites Aimed at Russian Speakers Shut Down
Brooklyn prosecutors and the FBI seized 112 servers behind a crypto scam that took tens of millions from Russian speakers, then tried to rob them again.
Gamdom: Crypto Casino Loses Over $3M From Its Hot Wallets, Three Weeks After Duelbits
Crypto casino Gamdom lost just over $3M, by its own count, when hackers drained its hot wallets on 13 Oct 2026. An on-chain count says $4.2M.
SkyAI: The Solana Treasury Company That Sold 70% of Its SOL in a Month to Buy Back Its Own Shares
SkyAI raised $400M in 2025 to buy and hold Solana. By October 2026 it had sold about 70% of its coins and offered $201M to buy back its own shares.
Ledger: $86M Reportedly Drained From Wallets Sold by a Southeast Asian Reseller
Buyers of Ledger wallets from Malaysian reseller CryptoBilis lost an estimated $72M to $102M to a hidden implant that copied their recovery words.
XRP Ledger: A Bug Hidden Since 2015 Could Have Printed XRP Beyond the 100 Billion Cap
A flaw in the XRP Ledger since about 2015 could have created XRP from nothing. An AI firm found it first and was paid $250,000. Nothing was lost.
Iran: The US Says It Will Seize $1B of Tehran's Crypto This Week, After Claiming $1B in May
Scott Bessent says the US will probably seize $1B of Iran-linked crypto this week. In May he said $1B was already taken. Treasury's own figure was $500M.
Ajay Shinjin: Jailed Over a £200,000 SIM-Swap Crypto Theft That Paid for Gold Grills and Dubai
Criminals hijacked four strangers' phone numbers and emptied their crypto. Ajay Shinjin spent his £44,000 on gold teeth and Dubai. He got 2.5 years.
79thVault: A $12.5M Drain Through Its Own Master Key, Then 92% Came Back
A staff master key emptied 79thVault's trading pool of $12.5M in an hour. Two days later 15,000 BNB came back. Nobody has said who held the key.
Blast: The Ethereum Network That Drew $2.3B Before Launch Is Shutting Down
Blast drew $2.3B before it even launched. On 2 Oct 2026 it said costs exceed revenue and it will close. Users must withdraw to Ethereum by 26 October.
MetaMask: Hackers Took Under $1,000, So It Pulled $1.4B of Ether Offline
An intruder in MetaMask's staking business redirected 0.36 ETH of tips. MetaMask answered by retiring about 17,000 validators holding roughly $1.4B.
Bitget: Hackers Took $387.5 Million by Faking the Exchange's Own Paperwork
Suspected North Korean hackers took $387.5 million from Bitget by feeding its own security system fake paperwork. No password or key was stolen.
Editor's picks
Kelp DAO: The $292M Bridge Exploit
A forged message emptied Kelp DAO's bridge of $292M, sent Aave into a run and ended in rival lawsuits over who left the door open.
Hack Database
The SEE Crew: $263M Stolen on Discord
They met online gaming. They stole $263M. They spent it on Lamborghinis and $500K nightclub tabs. Now they're going to prison one by one.
The Rap Sheet
Coinbase 2026: The Bloodbath That Killed the Supercycle
Coinbase cut 14% of staff. Q1 loss $394M. Strategy lost $12.54B. Bitcoin below $90K. The 'institutional adoption fixed everything' thesis is having a bad year.
Crash Chronicles
Operation Level Up: The FBI Crackdown on Pig Butchering Compounds
The FBI warned 8,935 pig butchering victims mid-scam and saved $562M. US prosecutors then went after the compound bosses and froze $938M in crypto.
The Rap Sheet
Bybit: The $1.5 Billion Heist That Shook Crypto
North Korean hackers took about $1.5 billion of ether from Bybit in one approved transfer. Twenty months on, under 5% has come back.
Hack Database
The Binance Bank Run That Wasn't: How a Tweet Faked a $17 Billion Exodus
A 20-minute glitch and a viral post claiming $17 billion had fled Binance set off a panic in February 2026. Its bitcoin reserves barely moved.
FUD Hall of Fame
The ETF Trap: How Wall Street Made the 2025 Crash Worse
In 2025 Wall Street funds held over $160 billion of Bitcoin and it hit $126,080. It still ended the year lower, and the funds led the way out.
Crash Chronicles
Axiom Exchange: The Insider Trading Exposé That Broke Polymarket
ZachXBT tweeted five sentences. $39.7 million in prediction bets followed. Then he named Axiom and published the receipts.
The Rap Sheet
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From the archives
The Block Size War: Bitcoin's Civil War That Forked the Chain
A fight over a 1MB limit split Bitcoin's users for three years and ended in 2017 with a new coin, Bitcoin Cash. It now trades near $280.
ICO Mania: When Every White Paper Raised $50 Million
In 2017 a white paper could raise millions in minutes. Most projects died, the SEC moved in, and in 2026 the token sale is back with US rules.
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NEAR Intents: $3.87M Drained, Then Handed Back After a 48-Hour Ultimatum
A bug let someone drain $3.87M in digital dollars from NEAR Intents. An AI alarm shut it down, and a 48-hour ultimatum got all of it back.
Duelbits: Crypto Casino Loses $7M to Hackers, Its Second Raid in Three Years
Neutron: The $9.3M Takeover That Lost a Vote, Then Won One
SingularityNET: The $16.77M Bridge Hack That Paid the Thief $2.29M
Raheim Hamilton: Empire Market Co-Founder Gets 40 Years Over a $430M Dark Web Bazaar
Two men ran a $430M online drug bazaar paid in bitcoin, then it vanished in 2020 with users' money inside. Now one of them has 40 years.
Daniel Rhyne: The IT Engineer Who Held His Own Company Hostage for 20 Bitcoin
Ronald Spektor: The Fake Coinbase Agent Who Took $16M
Adam Iza: 'The Godfather' Who Had LA Sheriff's Deputies on His Payroll
Coldcard Victims: They Followed Every Rule and Lost Everything Anyway
Thousands of Bitcoin holders did exactly what the industry told them to do. Their savings were gone before they woke up.
Sillytuna: The $24 Million Wrench Attack
Nancy Guthrie: 84, Taken From Her Tucson Home, With a $6M Bitcoin Ransom Demand
Alexei Dolgikh: Hundreds of Speeding Fines, Then a Fatal Lamborghini Crash
Greek Soldiers Accused Over $8M 'Double in 50 Days' Crypto Pyramid
Greek police arrested 17, nine of them soldiers, over FXO, a crypto scheme that promised to double money in 50 days and took about $8M from 10,000 people.
XinbiPay: A Sanctioned Scam Market's Visa Card and the Questions for UPay
Xinbi Guarantee: The $24B Telegram Market That Kept the Scam Compounds Supplied
AI Scams: The Person Video Calling You About Your Wallet Does Not Exist
Meme Coin Hall · 2026
Jean Phil: The AI Boxer Whose $12M Memecoin Lost 88% in a Day
Meme Coin Hall · 2026
Hunter Biden's LAPTOP: The Memecoin That Lost 98% in Its First Hour
Meme Coin Hall · 2026
GTA VI: A Leaker Turned Stolen Footage Into a $25M Memecoin
Meme Coin Hall · 2025
$TRUMP: When the President Launched a Meme Coin
Meme Coin Hall · 2024
Pump.fun: The Machine That Mints 10,000 Tokens a Day
Meme Coin Hall · 2023
PEPE: A Frog Meme That Hit $11 Billion
Meme Coin Hall · 2022
BONK: Solana's Airdrop Underdog
Meme Coin Hall · 2020
Shiba Inu: The 'Doge Killer' That Almost Did It
Meme Coin Hall · 2013
Dogecoin: The Joke That Hit $88 Billion
Bitcoin: A Record $2.7 Billion Short Squeeze Wiped Out the People Betting on a Crash
On 20 August 2026 Bitcoin jumped 8% in an hour and $2.7 billion of bets on a fall were wiped out, a record. Two weeks later it reversed.
Bitcoin ETFs: $4.5 Billion Walked Out and Took the Floor With It
Bitcoin's Perfect Storm: Saylor Sold 32 Coins and $3.5 Billion Followed
Black October: Trump's Tariffs Trigger $19B Liquidation
CoinEx: A $3.84B Iran Report in June, a Shutdown in September
CoinEx is closing after nine years, 12 weeks after TRM Labs traced $3.84B between it and sanctioned Iranian firms. CoinEx denies the claims.
BitMart: It Survived a $150 Million Hack in 2021. It Is Closing in 2027 Anyway
BitMEX: It Never Lost a Dollar to Hackers in 11 Years, and Closed Anyway
AscendEX: It Blamed a Missing License, but $240 Million Left 11 Days Earlier
Kishu Inu: Creator Charged Over an Alleged $9M Rug Pull of a $1.6B Dog Coin
Prosecutors say Kishu Inu's creator secretly kept 6% of the dog coin, told buyers the team held 1.7%, and sold for $9M. His lawyer disputes it.
Robinhood Chain: Analyst Ties $18.43M From 53 Memecoin Launches to One Ring
Jack Doherty: $2,400 In, $213,000 Out on a Coin He Swore He'd Never Sell
EdgeX: They Investigated Themselves and Did Not Find Themselves Guilty
Abstract: The Pudgy Penguins Blockchain Is Shutting Down After Losing Tens of Millions
Pudgy Penguins' owner spent tens of millions on its own blockchain, Abstract. It closes on 15 December 2026, and funds left there after that are lost.
Balancer: The DeFi Pioneer That Held $3.3B Votes 99% to Shut Down
Step App: It Paid You to Walk, If You Bought Imaginary Sneakers First
Mint Blockchain: The NFT Network That Shut Down After Two Years
Coldcard: Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins, and Your Keys Were Never Really Yours Either
For a decade the answer to every exchange collapse was to hold your own keys. Then a Coldcard firmware bug made thousands of offline wallets guessable.
Crypto IPOs: Going Public Was the Graduation, Then Gemini Fell 89% and the Class Flunked
XRP: The Bank Coin for Eight Years, Until Ripple's Own Ally Picked Solana
MiCA: The EU Built It to Herd Users Onto Regulated Exchanges. 70% Walked Off-Grid
The Binance Glitch: Who Really Killed the Bull Market on 10/10?
On 10 October 2025 a digital dollar fell to $0.65 on Binance alone and $19 billion of bets were wiped out. A year on, the blame is still argued.
The Tether Truthers: Infinite FUD Machine
The Energy Wars: How Bitcoin's Power Bill Became Political Ammunition
Elon Musk: The Man Who Tweets Markets
Brian Armstrong: '60+ Votes in the Senate.' The CLARITY Act Got 49
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong predicted 60+ Senate votes for the CLARITY Act. On 15 September 2026 it got 49, and crypto's biggest bill stalled.
Arthur Hayes: 'Meow - $HYPE to $150.' Sold Four Days Later.
BitBoy: 'This Coin Will 100x'
SBF: 'FTX Is Fine. Assets Are Fine.'
Bitcoin Obituaries: 477 Deaths and Counting
Bitcoin has been declared dead 477 times since it cost 23 cents. The 2026 slide brought the obituary writers back. It trades near $82,000.
Peter Schiff: Bitcoin's Loudest Hater
Warren Buffett: 'Rat Poison Squared'
Bitcoin vs Tulip Mania: The Critics' Favorite Comparison, Wrong Since 2013
$8.14B
stolen across 72 incidents CMZ has investigated in full, 2011 to 2026. The busiest year was 2026, with 54 documented hacks.
See every year, every incident