Crypto Whale Repeat Phishing — $25.6M Drain August 2026
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anchored·5NpCZr…7XyZSummary
On August 12, 2026, an unidentified Ethereum whale lost approximately $25.6 million in WBTC, cbBTC, aWBTC, DAI, ETH, LDO, USDS, and CRV to a phishing attack that induced the victim to authorize malicious token-approval transactions. The same wallet had previously lost $24.2 million in a nearly identical phishing scheme in September 2023, of which approximately 90% was returned; no funds from the 2026 attack had been recovered as of mid-August 2026. The combined gross exposure across both incidents is approximately $49.8 million, making this one of the most consequential repeat-targeting cases in Ethereum's history.
Connected Entities
8 entities · 60 linked investigations- Crypto Whale Repeat Phishing — $25.6M Drain August 2026→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- Crypto Whale Repeat Phishing — $25.6M Drain August 2026→mentioned with→FixedFloat(75%)
- Crypto Whale Repeat Phishing — $25.6M Drain August 2026→mentioned with→Harmony Bridge(70%)
- Crypto Whale Repeat Phishing — $25.6M Drain August 2026→mentioned with→Bitcoin(65%)
- Crypto Whale Repeat Phishing — $25.6M Drain August 2026→mentioned with→Coinsbuy(60%)
- Harmony Bridge→mentioned with→Bitcoin(75%)
- Harmony Bridge→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- Ethereum→mentioned with→Bitcoin(60%)
- Rocket Pool→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- Coinsbuy→mentioned with→Ethereum(70%)
- + 8 more
Timeline(7 events)
6 September 2023
The same Ethereum wallet (partial ID: 0x13e38) lost approximately $24.2 million in rETH and stETH after the victim signed malicious increaseAllowance transactions. The 2023 attacker swapped assets into approximately 13,785 ETH and 1.64 million DAI.
CoinPaper / CryptoSlateSeptember 2023
The 2023 attacker voluntarily returned approximately 90% of stolen funds — approximately $21.8 million — to the victim's wallet. Partial proceeds were traced to FixedFloat exchange.
CryptoPotato / Crypto.news12 August 2026
The same Ethereum whale wallet was drained of $25.6 million in a second phishing attack. Stolen assets included aWBTC ($6.3M), DAI ($5.1M), WBTC ($4.7M), ETH ($2.6M), and smaller amounts of cbBTC, USDS, LDO, and CRV. On-chain analyst Specter flagged the drain; attacker address partial ID reported as 0x8fEB...F95Ae.
Crypto Times / Tron Weekly / Coin Turk12 August 2026
PeckShield confirmed the attacker converted all stolen assets into approximately 20 million DAI and 3,000 ETH, distributed across four separate attacker-controlled addresses.
Tron Weekly / Crypto Adventure13 August 2026
CertiK independently confirmed approximately $25 million in outflows from the victim address. Multiple crypto news outlets published coverage of the incident.
Crypto Adventure15 August 2026
No funds from the 2026 attack had been returned as of mid-week. Weekly crypto losses for August 9–15, 2026 confirmed to exceed $37 million across multiple incidents.
Crypto Times16 August 2026
Crypto Times and AMBCrypto publish comprehensive weekly security roundups contextualizing the whale drain within broader 2026 losses exceeding $1.2 billion year-to-date.
AMBCryptoDecision Log
- hash: Ea2Vjpjb9fqFX3615zv5kz7zFttPyjrSomiyR7deK51m
- hash: 2JrmDmRuNk4xUB7AQkRQY95rArMQY7k2DyKtK2awv4WH
- hash: CqXiDFS3p5PwXGy6z7X5hda9rvdMx9Tv1fnrPiAF51wx
- hash: CrdfqBYhjqojvDwmWZgvneF2M5GW3TwEoMDjfKjaRkEv
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (4 events). 13 of 13 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 8/18/2026, 12:14:30 PM
last updated: 8/25/2026, 8:14:47 AM
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