A major whale sues Coinbase for refusing to return $55 million in stolen funds

BlockBeats News, May 6 — An anonymous crypto whale filed a lawsuit against Coinbase in the San Francisco Federal Court this month, accusing the exchange platform of refusing to return funds stolen in 2024. The victims are from Puerto Rico and reportedly lost over $55 million worth of DAI stablecoins in a phishing attack in August 2024. At that time, hackers gained control of the wallet through a fake DeFi Saver login page, quickly transferred the funds, and laundered them through mixing services. The victims then hired multiple on-chain investigation firms to track the funds, ultimately discovering that some of the stolen assets had flowed into Coinbase accounts. Although the platform froze the relevant funds in December 2024, it still refused to return them a year and a half later, claiming that only a court order could release the assets.

The lawsuit emphasizes that Coinbase’s initial freezing of the funds was reasonable, but it is unreasonable for the platform to refuse to return them after the victims provided sworn proof of ownership. Coinbase has not publicly responded to this matter.