Claude-Branded Scam Drains $517K from Crypto Users
A recent campaign of fake YouTube tutorials has drained more than $517,000 from at least 224 cryptocurrency users. The scam used Anthropic's Claude to market a series of videos promising to help viewers build AI-powered trading bots.
The videos, which accumulated over 310,000 views by September, used AI-generated presenters and voices, as well as fabricated testimonials and repeated profit claims, to appear legitimate. However, the tutorials actually deployed malicious smart contracts that transferred victims' funds to addresses controlled by the operators.
TRM Labs identified nine similar tutorials and found that one version of a compiler website designed to resemble Ethereum's Remix tool discarded the source code pasted by the victim and instead deployed malicious code fetched from the operator's server. The median victim lost 1 ETH, with a total of 274.60 ETH collected across six operator-controlled addresses between February and August.
The scam differs from conventional wallet drainers because users authorized every transaction themselves, without any phishing website or spoofed wallet connection to detect. The stolen funds were moved entirely through decentralized infrastructure, including DeFi services, cross-chain bridges, and a mixer.