Crypto Whale Sues Coinbase Alleging Exchange Refuses to Return Stolen Funds

Sander Lutz

Tue, May 5, 2026 astatine 11:59 AM CDT 2 min read

An anonymous crypto whale based successful Puerto Rico sued Coinbase this week, accusing the crypto speech of failing to merchandise funds stolen from the idiosyncratic successful a 2024 hack.

Though cardinal details successful the suit are redacted, accusation successful the filing regarding the hack intimately resembles a monolithic exploit successful August 2024 that saw a azygous crypto idiosyncratic suffer implicit $55 cardinal worthy of an Ethereum stablecoin, DAI, aft falling for a phishing scam.

The lawsuit, filed Monday successful a national tribunal successful San Francisco, claims that aft the hack, the whale hired aggregate on-chain probe firms to way the crypto down. Ultimately, the suit alleges, the sleuths traced the stolen funds backmost to a Coinbase account, and by aboriginal December of 2024, the crypto speech confirmed it had identified the funds, which would beryllium frozen pending an investigation.

The crypto whale present claims, however, that a twelvemonth and a fractional later, they inactive person not received their crypto back, and that Coinbase has said it volition not instrumentality the funds until compelled to bash truthful by a tribunal order.

Coinbase did not instantly respond to Decrypt’s petition for comment.

The $55 cardinal DAI hack successful 2024 was archetypal identified by pseudonymous on-chain crypto sleuth ZachXBT. Hackers utilized a level called “Inferno Drainer” to make a fake login leafage for DeFi Saver, a crypto absorption instrumentality utilized by the victim.

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The victim, reasoning they were signing into the site, unintentionally handed power of their wallet implicit to the hackers, who instantly sent the DAI to different crypto wallets and began laundering the funds with coin mixing services.

In the suit filed against Coinbase this week, the plaintiff said they had failed to announcement that the fake login page, which should person been DefiSaver.com, alternatively ended successful “.app.”