Crypto whale loses over $24M staked Ethereum to phishing, as ‘verified’ X scams surge

On-chain data shows a crypto whale “0x13e382” lost $24.23 million worth of liquid staked Ethereum, including 4,851 rETH (worth $8.58 million) and 9,579 stETH ($15.63 million), to phishing scammers on Sept. 6.

Web3 security firm Scam Sniffer revealed that the whale had unwittingly given token approval to the scammers by signing “increaseAllowance” transactions. The firm described the theft as probably “the largest amount ever stolen from a single victim.”