Autor Cointelegraph by Zoltan Vardai

Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries.All news, reviews, and analyses are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy.

Cybersecurity firm Rapid7 unveiled a new cryptocurrency phishing campaign known as Operation Asterix, targeting roughly 885,000 phone numbers from several countries to steal cryptocurrency investors’ assets.The phishing campaign led to 5,576 accounts matched to users on crypto exchange Binance, which were queued for attack, while the recovered logs also showed fake emails impersonating Crypto.com, according to a Monday report by Rapid7.Of the 885,000 phone numbers, the largest file included 316,002 German mobile numbers, with additional directories covering Hong Kong, Bulgaria, the UK, the US, Canadian fintech companies and additional Ledger-related lists. Phishing attacks and social engineering scams drove the majority of the crypto industry’s losses in the first quarter of the year, accounting for $306 million out of the total $482 million lost, according to blockchain security company Hacken.As part of the Asterix phishing campaign detailed by Rapid7 analysts Anna Sirokova and Jan Recinsky, attackers drove victims to fake apps impersonating Ledger, Trezor, and Exodus, seeking to steal their seed phrases. Attackers reached out to victims through fake support emails and phone inquiries.Operation Aseterix kill chain from acquisition to exfiltration. Source: Rapid7.Cointelegraph has contacted the analysts for further comment on what they found regarding target filtering, hardware wallet spoofing and self-custody vulnerabilities. We will update this article when they reply.Earlier in August, wallet provider Trezor reported a breach of personal data affecting about 14,000 users through its shipping provider, ShipMonk.  In July, a crypto investor lost nearly $1 million after signing a malicious phishing token approval transaction on Ethereum. In November 2023, a fake Ledger Live app on the Microsoft Store resulted in the theft of $588,000 across 38 transactions. Related: DefiLlama delayed mobile launch over phishing apps on Apple Store, founder saysAsterix phishing campaign boasts 13% “hit rate” Attackers matched 43,066 accounts to cryptocurrency users with exchange accounts, validated from the larger German dataset of over 316,000 phone numbers, meaning that the campaign has a “hit rate” of approximately 13.6%, according to Rapid7. The report also identified a checker for Kraken, which sought to bulk-validate phone numbers against accounts from the cryptocurrency exchange. The cybersecurity company said that the recovered artifacts showed that artificial intelligence tools were used as a significant part of the phishing campaign.Phishing attacks are a long-standing headwind for the crypto industry, as they enable attackers to exploit human behavior rather than the code of a protocol. On May 25, onchain analyst “b-block” warned that scammers used Google to deploy malicious phishing ads impersonating decentralized exchange Uniswap, reportedly stealing more than $400,000 from victims. Leading crypto industry figures, including Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, have previously called for better wallet security measures to avoid phishing scams, after an investor lost $50 million in an address poisoning scam in December 2025.  Magazine: How a ‘Wrong Number’ message turned into a $3.4M crypto scam 

Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries.All news, reviews, and analyses are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy.

GnosisDAO approved Gnosis Chain’s transition from a standalone layer-1 network to a ZK-proven Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) rollup.GIP-153 received 123,158 GNO in support, 115 against and 151 abstaining across 54 voters, Gnosis Chain said in an X post. Turnout reached 123,425 GNO, exceeding the 75,000 quorum.Under the proposal, Gnosis Chain’s validator set would be retired and the network would settle transactions on Ethereum, making Gnosis Chain a layer-2 (L2) that relies on Ethereum’s validators for settlement. An initial launch is targeted for late 2026 or early 2027, subject to the required EEZ technology being ready.The update would enable Gnosis Chain-native smart contracts to call Ethereum and use the result in the same transaction, giving it access to Ethereum mainnet assets and liquidity in an environment “optimized” for consumers, a capability the proposal says is not currently available on existing L2s.Gnosis Chain to become first production EEZ instanceThe EEZ is a framework for building Ethereum-aligned rollups, developed by Gnosis and ZisK, with funding from the Ethereum Foundation.The initiative aims to unify Ethereum’s fragmented L2 ecosystem by enabling smart contracts across different rollups to execute synchronously without relying on bridges. It targets one of Ethereum’s main scaling trade-offs: improved throughput from dozens of L2 networks, which separate liquidity, infrastructure, and user activity across separate blockchains.Gnosis Chain would become its first deployed instance while retaining its existing applications, balances and xDAI gas token.Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin previously raised concerns about the centralized sequencers and trusted bridging mechanisms as potential weak points in the design of some L2 networks. “The original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path,” Buterin wrote in a Feb. 3 X post. According to data from L2Beat, 22 Ethereum rollups currently secure $27.82 billion. Including validiums, optimiums and other scaling networks, the platform tracks $34.88 billion in total value secured.Related: Ripple raises $275M for US prime brokerage to meet institutional demandEEZ could reduce reliance on vulnerable infrastructure: Standard CharteredEEZ could reduce reliance on blockchain bridges and increase activity within the Ethereum ecosystem, according to Geoffrey Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered. “The EEZ will have the benefit of reducing the need for bridges (where hacks tend to occur) and increasing the usability of assets in EVM chains,” he wrote in a May 28 report shared with Cointelegraph.“Both of these are likely to lead to greater activity in the Ethereum ecosystem.” Kendrick said the EEZ could create greater composability between assets, allowing smart contracts on different participating networks to interact within the same transaction.Magazine: Ethereum’s EEZ could pull other blockchains into its orbit

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new regulatory proposal marks a significant step forward from a set of “inapt” crypto rules to clearer and more enforceable digital asset regulations, according to Commissioner Hester M. Peirce.A “whole generation has struggled with the SEC’s insistence” and the application of “a set of inapt rules to crypto,” but the SEC’s new crypto guidelines mark an important step toward “putting clear, sensible, enforceable rules in place for crypto offerings,” said Peirce in a statement released on Tuesday.SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins also praised the initiative and said that the agency’s prior enforcement-heavy approach has “driven investment offshore, limiting the type of protections that we can provide investors here,” according to a separate statement. In a Tuesday notice, the SEC proposed new rules to create a “clear and fit-for-purpose framework for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets,” allowing entities to raise capital while preserving investor protections. The proposal came days after the US Senate failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, which would provide a comprehensive framework for financial regulators overseeing the crypto industry. On July 27, Atkins told CNBC the agency was “ready, willing, and able to come out with rules“ on digital assets if the Senate failed to pass the CLARITY Act.   Meanwhile, Galaxy Digital has cut its odds on the CLARITY Act’s chances of passing in 2026 to 10%, warning that multiple political issues remain unresolved and the Senate will have only about two to three weeks to pass it when it reconvenes on Sept. 14. Magazine: Why Meta is choosing partners over power in its 2026 stablecoin push Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.