$75,000 Lost to Fake App

Google has been leading the Web2 world for the past several years, and now it is one of the biggest to offer the widest range of internet-related services. The Play Store by Google held several records by its side, a study by Statista notes that till June 2024, the Play Store had 16,82,635 applications available for downloads. 

As per  Check Point Research, an IT security firm has unveiled that a crypto wallet troubler, thief, has stolen $75,000 in the past five months, using “advanced evasion techniques,” to wipe out funds from the identified victims. 

The firm further notes that the identified malicious application is the replica of the known ConnectWallet protocol, which helps connect several crypto wallets to DeFi applications. The study notes that while searching for WalletConnect in Google Play, users find the malicious app “WalletConnect – Crypto Wallet” at the top of the list. 

However, there are strict guidelines to upload or develop an application over the Google Play Store to keep the user safe. However, scammers and fraudsters have evolved several ways to breach the guidelines of the platform and upload bonus or fake applications to lure the masses and further commit fraud. 

Who to Identify Malicious/Bogus Crypto Application? 

In the past several years, hundreds of crypto projects have debuted on the market, some are leading currently, and others failed to sustain, but the popular drive by a few cryptocurrencies has created several opportunities for bad actors to commit frauds and scams. 

To defraud crypto enthusiasts, scammers upload fake cryptocurrency exchange applications, replicas of leading crypto wallets, and bogus crypto mining applications promising high returns among others. 

In the era of technology, it’s tough to identify what is fake and what is original, but by following a few steps we can avoid resulting in financial fraud. Avoid replying to an email that claims to be a legitimate entity seeking personal information such as wallet key, passwords, usernames, or something that might cause you financial damages. 

Don’t log in to a website that isn’t provided by your trading aggregator, consulting, or broker. 

Crypto Market Price Updates 

When writing the cryptocurrency market capitalization was at $2.28 trillion with an intraday decline of 1.09%; at the same time fear and greed index by CoinMarketCap was at 56 reflecting neutrality. 

Until publishing Bitcoin was trading at $64,645 losing 1.42% of its price in the past 24 hours in the same frame its highest recorded trading price was $66,066 and its lowest traded at $64,219. BTC currently dominates 57.31%, and its dominance grew 11.04% YTD (year-to-date).   

The FTT token by FTX is now a bankrupt centralized exchange that gathered a huge spotlight as it grew 42.18% reaching $2.13. Similarly, its trading volume surged 3190% intraday reaching $364,374,333, and market capitalization reached $700,996,353 adding 42.26%.