Pixiu coins, pig-killing schemes, and private key scams, beware of "stitched monster" coin theft
Author: Bitrace
Cover: Photo by Sonika Agarwal on Unsplash
As Bitcoin hits a record high, the crypto economy begins to break out of the circle and is widely discussed and joined by more audiences outside the circle. But at the same time, the industry has also attracted some lawless elements, who designed various scams with high returns and free teaching as bait, and put them on major social platforms and online communities, causing losses to uninformed investors. This article will expose a typical cryptocurrency stitching scam to prevent users from being lured into the trap.
The deceptions are superimposed and linked
Recently, a victim contacted Bitrace and said that the assets in his wallet were emptied. After checking the victim's address and related circumstances, we found that the victim suffered a triple blow of having his private key stolen, buying Pixiu coins, and being scammed. The combination of scams is typical.
Tik Tok acquaintance, cheating private key
A few days ago, the victim saw a content discussing cryptocurrency investment on a short video platform, and revealed his optimism about Bitcoin in the comment section. He then received a private message from a "like-minded" cryptocurrency trader, who said he was willing to teach him how to trade in cryptocurrencies.
The two chatted happily and exchanged WeChat accounts to further explore ways to make money. In the market where MEME coins are rising sharply, the scammer claimed that he had made a lot of money by buying Tugou on the chain. Under his guidance, the victim downloaded the TP wallet, recharged ETH, and imported the Tugou contract in one go. Little did he know that when the victim took screenshots and inquired about the operation again and again, he had sent the seed phrase with the highest control authority of the assets to the other party.
This means that the scammer can transfer all the assets in the victim's wallet at any time. However, the scammer did not do so. Instead, he actually led the victim to cheat because the assets in the wallet were not enough to "close the net."
The activity of leading orders with the gimmick of teaching investment methods for cryptocurrencies is one of the common false investment and financial scams. Fraudsters generally take advantage of the lack of understanding of cryptocurrencies by people outside the circle, and obtain private information such as seed phrase, keys, and QR codes equivalent to keys while guiding victims to install wallets.
Brother, you are awesome! Pixiu coin
The first investment target was a Altcoin called Jungle. The project had its own official website and Twitter account, and everything seemed normal. The fraudsters claimed that the project had a high "new share yield" and that the price would rise rapidly after purchase.
The victim excitedly exchanged a small amount of ETH for “new coins”, and the token price quickly doubled. Later, under the guidance of the scammer, the victim sold all his assets and exclaimed, “Brother, you are awesome.” However, he did not expect that this was a trick that RUG had used before - to get a taste of success.
In fact, the real story on the chain is that this is a "Pixiu coin". Other victims who accidentally purchased it are anxiously authorizing different DEXs on the chain to try to sell the tokens. The victim's "profit" is only because the fraudster set a permission whitelist for his address.
TP Expert, Pig Killing Scheme
The next day, the scammers made another move, suggesting that the victim increase his capital investment and continue to participate in the new coin issuance. The victim readily agreed, but after purchasing 2.39 ETH to his wallet, he put it on hold for some reason. The scammers could not hold back, and without waiting for the victim to participate in the purchase of Pixiu coins, they directly imported the seed phrase and transferred all the assets away.
The victim was confused when he found that his wallet balance was empty, so he informed the "mentor in sheep's clothing" of the situation. The scammer claimed that the funds had entered the TP wallet address and introduced the victim to the so-called "TP engineer", who, on the grounds of triggering the risk control rules, asked the victim to continue to transfer the same amount of ETH to "eliminate the risk control". The victim only then realized that he had been deceived.
Cryptocurrency wallets such as TokenPocket and imToken are decentralized. Wallet companies do not hold user wallet private keys and cannot impose so-called "risk control restrictions" on user assets. Any asset recovery methods such as "data will roll over" and "contact official customer service" are scams.
Fraudster address chain analysis
According to the relevant addresses provided by the victims, Bitrace further tracked and found that the fraud group was a repeat offender of Pixiu Coin and had previously created and operated more than 50 fraudulent tokens. The common fraud method is to add 30,000 USDT liquidity to SushiSwap immediately after creating the token, and then withdraw the pool at the right time.
Here are some representative Pixiu coins issued by this fraud group: $JGE defrauded 497 victims of 59,018 USDT; $POX defrauded 498 victims of 45,452 USDT; $AOQ defrauded 432 victims of 22,048 USDT; $WAL defrauded 358 victims of 4,185 USDT. In summary, the fraud team made at least 131,201 USDT.
Bitrace reminds everyone that crypto fraud methods are changing with each passing day and are iterating very quickly, especially in the recent explosion of the secondary cryptocurrency market. Such scams tend to break out of the circle quickly. Investors need to be vigilant against netizens and must fully understand the basics of encryption before considering investment.
