According to Cointelegraph, a wallet drainer for The Open Network (TON) has announced its closure, directing users to a different crypto-draining service. On October 7, Web3 anti-scam solution Scam Sniffer shared a screenshot of the announcement. The wallet drainer cited the lack of crypto whales in the TON community as the reason for its shutdown, stating, 'Due to TON not having whales and it being a small community, we will close.' The hackers encouraged users to target Bitcoin (BTC) instead, suggesting that those who enjoyed draining on TON would also find BTC draining appealing. They also advertised an alternative service, confirming that the TON-based drainer would not return.
Interest in TON-based drainers has been growing since June. In a previous interview with Cointelegraph, Blockaid co-founder Raz Niv noted an increasing interest in the TON ecosystem among drainers due to the significant value streamed through it. One such drainer was detected using a fake 5,000 USDt (USDT) transaction to bait users. This scam exploited TON’s comment feature, which allows transfers to include custom messages, masking the true purpose of signatures. Transfer messages displayed prompts like 'Receive 5,000 USDT' and a 'Confirm' button, initiating the token drain when signed by the user. In May, Scam Sniffer reported that this trick had already drained 22,000 Toncoin (TON) tokens, valued at over $150,000 at the time.
In related news, Scam Sniffer data revealed that phishing scams drained approximately $46.6 million in digital assets in September, affecting around 10,800 victims. The majority of these losses stemmed from a single phishing transaction that drained over $32 million in crypto. Phishing attacks typically deceive crypto holders into linking their wallets to fraudulent services like drainers, enabling malicious actors to withdraw funds without further authentication.
