Binance co-founder He Yi and Changpeng Zhao (CZ) warns crypto community over surge in phishing scams linked to meme coins

The cofounders of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) and Yi He have been vocal about impersonator accounts on X (formerly Twitter) using the exchange’s brand name to defraud investors. 

These accounts are created by scammers and often mimic celebrity or affluent individuals to trick users into sending crypto or clicking malicious phishing links. After the latest round of exploits, Yi He has now challenged users to take responsibility for their losses. 

Yi He claps back at people pointing fingers at Binance  

Before she responded, one user who seemed to have been affected by the so-called hack called her and CZ out for not responding. The user theorized this was because those affected were mostly retail traders. 

“As Binance’s founder, @cz_binance @heyibinance made no response whatsoever. Because small retail investors don’t count as people in their eyes. They only reply to questions from KOLs and ad shills,” the user wrote. 

What came next was a call to action to boycott the exchange; “all retail investors who lost money on this token uninstall the Binance exchange and stay away from the Binance wallet.” 

After all, “One person uninstalling doesn’t matter, 10 people uninstalling they don’t care either. If thousands or tens of thousands of people boycott together, then they’ll take such incidents seriously.”

Yi He was not as passive as CZ in her response to the post implying that Binance needed to take accountability for the exploits. 

“The Binance Ukraine account was not hacked,” she reassured one person before alleging the meme was posted “by a highly impersonating fake account” and that this was just an attempt by some “KOLs” who want to “replicate the narrative of the 4th hack without verifying it.”

“If they buy and lose money, they swarm the Binance customer service channels, create topic conflicts, and now continue to take things out of context to stir up contradictions,” she concluded. 

In another case, she implied that most people falling for these impersonation scams are not being cautious enough.

“Please, while everyone is doing on-chain investments, also take responsibility for your own actions,” she chastised.

Hackers also want a piece of the memecoin pie 

Scams that have involved impersonation or the cloning of accounts on social media pages have led to significant losses for users, and the timing is terrible; euphoria can make some sloppy. 

Which is probably why CZ and Yi He have been talking nonstop about it. Yi He in particular, has been actively warning about her own impersonators, alleging in June 2024 that one fake account had already scammed users out of 60 ETH by promoting bogus links and tokens. 

Earlier today, Cryptopolitan reported on CZ addressing the recent Binance-linked scams. “With the rise of meme coins, hackers are targeting social media accounts (as they usually have lower security measures) to post CAs. Beware that official accounts do not endorse any specific memes,” the former CEO said. 

The statement follows a hack that targeted the official X account of BNB Chain, which the hacker then used to promote unauthorized token campaigns as well as fake airdrops.

The compromised account, with its nearly four million users, was used to post fraudulent links and unsuspecting users who interacted with the links, putting them at risk of exposing their private keys and getting drained. 

According to Blockchain security firm SlowMist, the operation was hinged on a phishing domain that looked similar to the official BNB Chain website, except for a single character.

Researchers from SlowMist have also linked the domain to the notorious Inferno Drainer group – a collective known for its wallet-draining templates and has been in operation since 2022.

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