Here’s Why BEAM’s Price Dropped 7% Today

Mimblewimble-based privacy coin Beam (BEAM) experienced a 7% price slump earlier today due to large offloading by a single wallet address.

A tweet by blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain revealed that the offloaded assets were stolen in a phishing attack that occurred on February 15.

BEAM Holder Falls for Phishing Attack

According to Lookonchain, the phishing attack was executed on a wallet address labeled kirilm.eth. The attacker made away with over 180 million BEAM tokens in two transactions containing 153.2 million BEAM and 27 million BEAM. The assets were worth roughly $5.14 million at the time of the incident.

To secure the funds, the malicious actor quickly sold the 180.25 million BEAM for 1,629 ether (ETH) worth roughly $4.6 million, causing the former’s price to plummet by approximately 7%. A screenshot shared by the blockchain analytics platform showed that BEAM’s price dropped to $0.028 after the incident.

At the time of writing, BEAM had recovered slightly and was changing hands at $0.097, per data from CoinMarketCap.

More Phishing Incidents

Kirilm. eth’s experience has joined a fast-growing list of incidents about crypto investors who have lost their holdings to malicious actors via phishing scams.

Less than a month ago, an unidentified investor lost $4.2 million in Aave Ethereum Wrapped ETH (aEthWETH) and Aave Ethereum Uniswap (aEthUNI) after they fell victim to a phishing attack that used a false ERC-20 permission signature.

As CryptoPotato reported, the victim unintentionally signed multiple transaction approvals using a compromised ERC-20 authorization. The signature was manipulated by an opcode contract to circumvent security alerts.

In another case earlier this year, Bill Lou, CEO and co-founder of security-focused crypto wallet app Nest Wallet, lost 52 staked ETH (stETH) worth $125,000 at the time to phishing scammers. Lou fell victim to a fake website posing as the official platform for the LFG token when he attempted to claim an airdrop.

The LFG airdrop, standing for “less fees and gas,” was introduced as a reward for Ethereum users who had spent more than $4,269 on transaction fees since 2016.

Meanwhile, blockchain security firm SlowMist recently warned crypto community members to be wary of comments under tweets from well-known projects as 80% of them are deceptive and from phishing scam accounts.