A salutary tale for crypto newbies - be careful out there.

The Irish Tech News Podcast

CryptoLeach is a private individual who describes himself as a crypto newbie. He invested some money into crypto two years ago and he is hoping it might earn him some extra money. He is not a gamer but he does play some online games so when he saw that he could earn crypto by playing Gods Unchained, an online collectable card game, he decided to give it a go. He connected his Metamask wallet and began playing hoping to earn Ethereum.

All was going well until he spotted some free cards in the game. He was going to download them but the gas fee was too high and so he cancelled his transaction. It was only a few days later he discovered his Metamask wallet was empty – he had the guts of two thousand pounds in there.

He put out some tweets. The lovely ThatMartiniguy replied and even subbed him his original amount of eth. The help desk at Unchained did their best, so too at Metamask – but no one is the wiser…

What happened? Where was the hole? In the wallet, in the game? CryptoLeach managed to track down his Ethereum to another wallet which was very active for about five days until it went quiet – and empty. He tracked down another wallet which appears to be connected and that has millions of dollars in it. What is going on?

How did the money leave his wallet?

Had it happened while he was playing GodsUnchained – is there a connection? A hack that has yet to be uncovered?

Was it anything to do with the ‘free’ cards? Where did they come from?

Are there known holes in Metamask? How safe are wallets?

Where else might he have been - are there known hacks to avoid - any ideas?

Can you help?

Check out@cryptoleach or @MartiniGuyYT and let us know if you can help.

Tell me on @jilliangodsil