A large anonymous crypto holder based in Puerto Rico has taken Coinbase to federal court, accusing the exchange of sitting on more than $55 million in stolen funds and refusing to return them without a court order.
What the lawsuit says
- The complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, paints a familiar picture to anyone who followed an August 2024 exploit: an individual lost over $55 million worth of DAI after falling for a phishing scam. Many specifics in the filing are redacted, but the account of the hack matches that high-profile incident.
- According to the plaintiff, after the theft they hired multiple on-chain investigation firms to trace the missing tokens. Those investigators, the suit alleges, tracked the funds to an account on Coinbase.
- The filing says Coinbase acknowledged identifying the funds and confirmed in early December 2024 that the assets would be frozen pending an investigation. Yet the plaintiff claims that roughly a year and a half later the exchange has not returned the funds and has insisted it will only release them if ordered to do so by a court.
How the hack reportedly worked
- The August 2024 loss was first flagged by pseudonymous sleuth ZachXBT. Attackers deployed a tool called “Inferno Drainer” to spin up a fake login page mimicking DeFi Saver, a widely used crypto-management interface.
- The victim reportedly entered credentials on the counterfeit site — which used a .app address instead of the legitimate DeFiSaver.com — inadvertently handing the attackers control of their wallet. The hackers moved the DAI across multiple addresses and began laundering it through coin-mixing services.
Why the case matters
- If the plaintiff’s claims hold up, the lawsuit could force scrutiny of how centralized exchanges respond when on-chain tracing links stolen crypto to accounts on their platforms — and whether exchanges can or should unilaterally return frozen assets to victims.
- Coinbase did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.
The suit underscores a recurring tension in crypto: on-chain transparency can expose ill-gotten gains, but converting that visibility into restitution often runs into legal, procedural and custody-related hurdles when centralized intermediaries are involved.
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