TON blockchain has been the crypto success story of 2024. Toncoin’s price has increased more than five times over the past year and surged into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
Its clicker games with airdrops like Notcoin and Hamster Kombat have helped drive daily active addresses above Ether’s.
The 900 million users of the Telegram messaging platform excites proponents who see TON as a potential mass adoption play.
The eye-watering numbers are a project’s dream, but it’s also an oasis for drainers stuck in Ethereum, where lakes of victims are starting to dry up.
TON records more users than Ethereum. (Delphi Digital)
Israel-based security firm Blockaid reports that cryptocurrency drainers have started migrating to The Open Network (TON), a blockchain initially developed by messaging app Telegram.
“We’re seeing a lot of drainers become more and more interested in the TON ecosystem [because] there is so much value streamed through TON,” Raz Niv, co-founder of Blockaid, an Israel-based security company, tells Magazine.
Crypto newcomers who have flocked to the platform for games are ideal, unsophisticated targets for drainers.
To make matters worse, draining activity on TON is relatively new, and the network’s wallets don’t yet contain the security tools that older chains like Ethereum do.
One TON drainer was seen phishing victims with the allure of 5,000 USDT. This scheme uses TON’s unique comment feature, which allows transfers to contain a custom message for the recipient at the signing stage in their wallets.
When the transfer pops up saying “Receive 5,000 USDT,” along with a “Confirm” button, victims get hooked without knowing that they’re actually signing off on a token drain.
This simple yet effective trick earned one particular drainer at least 22,000 TON (about $152,000), according to Scam Sniffer.
More recently, the same suspicious address was seen spinning up a campaign related to a Notcoin airdrop phishing scam.
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