Advanced Phishing and Rug Pulls Threaten Crypto Investors

[cryptobro]

Crypto users face growing risks from sophisticated scams. Advanced phishing attacks now target wallets and exchange accounts using fake websites, emails, and social engineering to steal private keys. Wallet drainers, QR-code scams (“quishing”), and spear phishing have led to losses, including a $330 million Bitcoin theft in May 2025.

Rug pulls also continue to plague decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFT projects. Scammers lure investors with high returns before withdrawing liquidity and disappearing. In 2025 alone, rug pulls caused nearly $6 billion in losses, compared to $90 million in early 2024. A notable case involved the LIBRA token on Solana, which lost over 94% of its value following social media hype.

[Nahid10]

Even with all the security tools, rug pulls keep evolving. It’s not just shady devs now, even good-looking projects with KYC vanish overnight.

[EmTeam]

Phishing emails look so legit these days, one click and funds are gone. Education on wallet safety needs to be mainstream, not optional.