Bitcoin ETFs continued their inflow streak on Wednesday, raking in over $900 million in fresh capital.
However, despite the bullish ETF demand, Bitcoin’s open interest has dipped, and its funding rates have flipped negative, a sign that short-term market sentiment may be shifting.
Bitcoin ETFs Stay Hot
BTC spot ETFs continued to draw investor interest on Wednesday, extending their inflow streak with another $916.91 million in net inflows.
This marked the fourth consecutive day of inflows, highlighting the growing institutional appetite for BTC exposure, especially as the coin’s price attempts to stabilize above the $90,000 level.
Total Bitcoin Spot ETF Net Inflow. Source: SosoValue
On Wednesday, BlackRock’s ETF IBIT recorded the largest daily net inflow, totaling $643.16 million, bringing its total cumulative net inflows to $40.63 billion.
Ark Invest and 21Shares’ ETF ARKB followed in second place with a net inflow of $129.50 million. The ETF’s total historical net inflows now stand at $3 billion.
Traders Exit Bitcoin Positions as Market Sentiment Turns Cautious
Trading activity across the crypto market has dipped over the past 24 hours, with the total market capitalization shedding $18 billion during the period.
This pullback has contributed to a modest 1% decline in BTC’s price. The drop in momentum is evident in the coin’s falling futures open interest, which signals reduced trading participation. At press time, BTC’s futures open interest is at $64.54 billion, plunging by 5% in the past day.
When an asset’s price and open interest plummet like this, it signals that traders are closing out positions rather than opening new ones. This combination reflects weak conviction and a potential trend reversal or deeper correction in the BTC market.
Further, BTC’s funding rate has flipped negative once again, indicating that short traders have regained dominance and are now paying to maintain their positions. At press time, this is at -0.0053%.
When BTC’s funding rate is negative, short sellers are paying long holders to keep their positions open. This indicates that bearish sentiment dominates the market and suggests that traders expect the coin’s price to decline soon.
Moreover, today’s high demand for puts in the BTC options market supports this bearish outlook. According to Deribit, BTC’s put-to-call ratio is currently at 1.36.
This indicates that more put options are traded than calls, suggesting a bearish bias among options traders. The ratio reflects growing expectations of downward price movement.
AI coins like Reploy (RAI), Alchemist AI (ALCH), and DOGEAI have seen strong market activity in the last seven days. Reploy, an Ethereum-based platform for LLM development, has jumped 15% in the past week as adoption grows.
Alchemist AI, a no-code software development platform on Solana, is up 40%, driven by increasing demand. DOGEAI, tapping into multiple narratives, has gained 5% over the past seven days despite a sharp correction.
Reploy (RAI)
Reploy, an Ethereum-based platform, specializes in developing large language models (LLMs) for a range of applications, including personal chat, image generation, and artificial intelligence assistants.
The platform is integrated with 40 different protocols and introduced its native token, RAI, at the end of December 2024, aiming to enhance its ecosystem and utility.
RAI has surged 15% over the past week, bringing its market cap near to $18 million, while its 24-hour trading volume has climbed 76%. If the current uptrend continues,
RAI could test the resistance at $2.14, and a breakout above this level could push it toward $2.40. Sustained buying interest might drive RAI to challenge $2.90, with the potential to surpass $3 for the first time in a month.
Alchemist AI (ALCH)
Alchemist AI is a no-code development platform that enables users to create software applications using natural language and simple descriptions. Its native token, ALCH, operates on the Solana blockchain.
ALCH has surged over 40% in the past week as the platform continues to gain traction, pushing its market cap to $54 million.
If the current momentum persists, ALCH could soon test the resistance at $0.074, and a breakout could send it toward $0.11.
However, if the trend reverses, losing the $0.059 support could lead to a drop toward $0.045, with a strong downtrend potentially pushing it as low as $0.021.
DOGEai (DOGEAI)
Positioning itself within multiple narratives, DOGEAI capitalizes on the popularity of Dogecoin, the growing attention toward the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the US department led by Elon Musk, and the trend of AI coins.
The project describes itself as “an autonomous AI agent dedicated to identifying waste and inefficiencies in government spending and policy decisions”.
Over the past week, $DOGEAI has climbed nearly 16% until Thursday, though it started seeing correction on Friday. The token currently holds support around $0.040, but if this level fails, a decline toward $0.026 could follow.
On the upside, sustained interest and buying momentum could push $DOGEAI to test resistance at $0.049, with a breakout potentially driving the price as high as $0.076.
Social engineering scams are on the rise, and these exploits have particularly targeted Coinbase users throughout the first quarter of 2025. According to a series of investigations by ZachXBT, users have lost over $100 million in funds since December 2024, while annual losses reached $300 million.
After sorting through the complaints made by different users, BeInCrypto spoke with Coinbase Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Jeff Lunglhofer to understand what makes users vulnerable to these kinds of attacks, how they happen, and what’s being done to stop them.
Gauging the Seriousness of Scams Affecting Coinbase Users
Throughout the first quarter of 2025, several Coinbase users fell victim to social engineering scams. As the leading centralized exchange in a sector where hacks are becoming more sophisticated with time, this reality is no surprise.
In a recent investigation, Web3 researcher ZachXBT reported on several messages he received from different X users who had suffered major withdrawals from their Coinbase accounts.
1/ Over the past few months I imagine you have seen many Coinbase users complain on X about their accounts suddenly being restricted.
This is the result of aggressive risk models and Coinbase’s failure to stop its users losing $300M+ per year to social engineering scams. pic.twitter.com/PjtX7vmjqc
On March 28, ZachXBT revealed a significant social engineering exploit that cost one individual close to $35 million. The crypto sleuth’s further investigations during that period uncovered additional victims of the same exploit, pushing the total stolen in March alone to more than $46 million.
In a separate investigation concluded a month earlier, ZachXBT revealed that $65 million was stolen from Coinbase users between December 2024 and January 2025. He also reported that Coinbase has been quietly grappling with a social engineering scam issue costing its users $300 million a year.
While Coinbase users have been particularly vulnerable to social engineering scams, centralized exchanges, in general, have also been significantly impacted by these increasingly sophisticated attacks.
How Does The Broader Context Reflect This Situation?
Public data regarding the evolution of social engineering scams in recent years is limited and somewhat outdated. Yet, the numbers in the available reports are staggering.
In 2023, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) under the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released its first-ever cryptocurrency report. Investment fraud constituted the largest category of cryptocurrency-related complaints, representing 46% of the nearly 69,500 complaints received, or approximately 33,000 cases.
The FBI’s IC3 reported an increase in crypto-related scams in 2023. Source: IC3.
Investment fraud, or pig butchering, involves false promises of high returns with low risk to lure investors, especially crypto newcomers driven by a fear of missing out on significant gains.
According to the IC3 report, these schemes rely on social engineering and building trust. Criminals use platforms like social media, dating apps, professional networks, or encrypted messaging to connect with their targets.
In 2023, these investment scams resulted in losses of $3.96 billion for users, representing a 53% increase from the previous year. Other social engineering scams, like phishing and spoofing, further constituted $9.6 million in losses.
Coinbase scammers tend to create fake emails that appear legitimate using cloned website images and false Case IDs. They then contact users through spoofed calls, leveraging private information to build trust before sending them these deceptive emails.
Once scammers have convinced users of the interaction’s legitimacy, they exploit the situation to persuade them to transfer funds.
The increasing sophistication of these scams illustrates both the emotional manipulation involved and the particular vulnerability of the victims. They demonstrate that centralized exchanges are often the primary platforms for these exploitations.
ZackXBT’s investigations and user reports on X reveal a gap between the extent of social engineering scams and Coinbase’s apparent management effectiveness.
Public discussions indicate that Coinbase has not flagged theft addresses in common compliance tools.
Victims of scams and users whose funds were frozen are urging Coinbase to take stronger action against this growing and costly issue. Understanding how these scams take place is essential to effectively addressing them.
How Are Coinbase Users Made Victims?
In January, a victim contacted the investigator after losing $850,000. In that instance, the scammer contacted the victim from a spoofed phone number, using personal information likely obtained from private databases to gain their trust.
5/ They then sent a spoofed email which appeared to be from Coinbase with a fake Case ID further gaining trust.
They instructed the victim to transfer funds to a Coinbase Wallet and whitelist an address while “support” verified their accounts security. pic.twitter.com/pOTQpnMfCz
The scammer convinced the victim that their account had suffered multiple unauthorized login attempts by sending them a spoofed email with a fake Case ID. The scammer then instructed the victim to safelist an address and transfer funds to another Coinbase wallet as part of a routine security procedure.
Last October, another Coinbase user lost $6.5 million after receiving a call from a spoofed number impersonating Coinbase support.
The victim was coerced into using a phishing site. Eight months earlier, another victim lost $4 million after a scammer convinced them to reset their Coinbase login.
ZachXBT raised concerns about Coinbase’s lack of reporting the theft addresses in common compliance resources and their perceived inadequate handling of the escalating social engineering issue.
In a conversation with BeInCrypto, Jeff Lunglhofer, Coinbase’s Chief Information Security Officer, shared his version of the events.
Coinbase CISO Addresses Social Engineering Scams
Despite Coinbase’s clear understanding of the widespread harm caused by social engineering scams affecting its users, Lunglhofer stressed that the broader crypto community should address this problem collectively rather than entrusting the responsibility to a single entity.
“In the context of the broader social engineering challenge that’s out there, of course, Coinbase customers are impacted. We’re keenly aware of it. We’ve been rolling [out] a number of control improvements to help protect our users, and, I think more importantly, we are working with the broader industry to bring these ideas and these control uplifts across the industry, across all crypto exchanges, across everything,” Lunglhofer told BeInCrypto.
Coinbase’s CISO referenced the exchange’s collaborative efforts with other platforms to combat this problem in his reply.
Specifically, Lunglhofer pointed to the “Tech Against Scams” initiative, a partnership with industry players like Match Group, Meta, Kraken, Ripple, and Gemini to fight online fraud and financial schemes.
Lunglhofer also added that Coinbase takes a similar approach when flagging theft addresses.
Why Coinbase Handles Theft Addresses Differently
When BeInCrypto asked Coinbase why it doesn’t publish theft addresses across popular compliance tools, Lunglhofer explained that the exchange has a different procedure for these scenarios.
“We will communicate with other exchanges directly [and] let them know the addresses that we’ve seen where assets have been withdrawn,” he said, adding that “when we see that there’s, in fact, fraudulent [activity], we will pull back all the wallets that are associated with the fraud and we’ll push those out to the other exchanges that we have communications with,” he said.
Lunglhofer also mentioned Crypto ISAC, an intelligence and information-sharing group established by Coinbase in collaboration with various other crypto exchanges and organizations to distribute information related to scams.
Coinbase’s Struggle Against the Flood of Spoofed Content
Lunglhofer admitted that the number of spoofed emails Coinbase identifies or receives in the form of reports far exceeds the exchange’s capacity to take them down.
“Regrettably, they’re a dime a dozen. I can open ten of them in five minutes. It’s super easy to do. So there’s not a lot we can do about that. But, when we identify them [or when] a customer reports them, we do have them taken down,” he said.
Coinbase uses vendors to eliminate circulating spoofs or phishing campaigns in those instances.
“We have several vendors that we use to do takedowns. So anytime we see a fraudulent phone number pop up, anytime we see a fraudulent URL [or] a fraudulent website get established, we will issue those for takedown. We’ll use our vendors to work with the DNS providers and others to bring those down as quickly as possible,” Lunglhofer told BeInCrypto.
Although these preventative measures are essential for the future, they provide minimal recourse for users who have already lost millions of dollars to scams.
Whose Responsibility Is It? User vs. Exchange
Coinbase did not respond to BeInCrypto’s inquiry about developing an insurance policy for users who lost savings to social engineering scams, leaving their approach in this area unclear.
Yet, social engineering scams are complex, relying on significant emotional manipulation to build trust. This complexity raises questions about the degree of responsibility that falls on user vulnerability versus potential shortcomings in the centralized exchange’s user protection measures.
The broader cryptocurrency community generally agrees that more educational materials are necessary to help users distinguish between legitimate communications and scam attempts.
Regarding this issue, Lunglhofer clarified that Coinbase will never call users out of the blue. He also noted that Coinbase has recently implemented different features that act as warnings for users potentially interacting with a scam.
Furthermore, the CISO cited a ‘scam quiz,’ an educational tool that appears as a real-time banner when a user is about to undertake a transaction flagged as suspicious by the exchange.
Though this feature is an advantage, its ability to protect users is hard to quantify, especially regarding how efficiently it flags suspicious activity. Coinbase did not respond when BeInCrypto asked if the exchange internally tracked data related to social engineering scams.
A similar issue arises with Coinbase’s ‘allow lists.’
The $850,000 Coinbase Loss
Coinbase offers a feature that enables users to create a safelist of approved recipient addresses to help prevent transactions to unfamiliar or unverified addresses. Lunglhofer strongly urges Coinbase users to adopt this measure.
“We offer every retail customer the ability to create ‘allow lists’ for wallets that they’re permitted to transfer assets to. On my personal account on Coinbase, I have ‘allow listing’ turned on, and I only have three wallets that are allowed,” Lunglhofer detailed.
However, the $850,000 scam loss suffered by a Coinbase user in January, as revealed by ZachXBT, shows a critical limitation of safelists.
Even after a victim adds a theft address, manipulation leading to this addition can still occur, thereby neutralizing the intended protection.
Can Coinbase Do More to Protect Users?
Sophisticated social engineering scams are a growing threat, creating significant challenges for crypto users. Coinbase users and centralized exchanges in general are particularly affected.
Despite Coinbase’s outlined efforts, the significant financial losses highlight the limitations of current industry-standard measures against determined scammers.
While cooperation is crucial across the board, Coinbase, as a leading platform, must also put more proactive efforts and resources into educating its users.
Social engineering is predominantly a user-driven issue, not a security failure for any exchange. Yet, platforms like Coinbase have the critical responsibility to lead industry-wide initiatives to address these threats.
The millions lost are a stark reminder that vigilance and collective action are paramount in safeguarding users against these increasingly refined and frequent attacks.
Pi Network’s prolonged decline has extended into another week, with the token shedding nearly 16% of its value amid a broader market lull.
As macro uncertainty intensifies and Pi’s scheduled daily token unlocks continue to weigh heavily on sentiment, the downward pressure appears far from over.
Sellers Dominate as PI Falls Below Key Thresholds
Since reaching an all-time high of $3 on February 25, PI has recorded consistent weekly losses, with no significant demand inflows to halt the slide.
On the daily chart, the readings from the token’s Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator reflect the deepening bearish momentum. At press time, PI’s MACD line (blue) rests below the signal line (orange).
The MACD indicator identifies trends and momentum in its price movement. It helps traders spot potential buy or sell signals through crossovers between the MACD and signal lines.
As with PI, when the MACD line rests below the signal line, it indicates waning buying activity. Traders see this setup as a sell signal. Hence, it could exacerbate the downward pressure on PI’s price.
Moreover, PI’s negative Balance of Power (BoP) shows that sellers remain firmly in control. As of this writing, the indicator is at -0.12.
The BoP indicator measures the strength of buyers versus sellers in the market, helping to identify momentum shifts. When its value is positive, buyers dominate the market over sellers and drive newer price gains.
Conversely, negative BoP readings signal that sellers are dominating the market, with little to no resistance from buyers. This points to sustained downward pressure and weakening investor confidence.
For PI, the negative BoP readings reinforce the bearish outlook. It suggests that selling momentum may persist unless new demand emerges.
Pi Network Struggles Below Key EMA Level
Currently, PI trades at $0.53, exchanging hands below its 20-day exponential moving average (EMA), which forms dynamic resistance above its price at $0.56.
The 20-day EMA measures an asset’s average price over the past 20 trading days, giving more weight to recent prices. When an asset’s price trades below its 20-day EMA, it signals short-term bearish momentum and potential continued downside. If the bears retain control, they could drive PI’s price to revisit its all-time low at $0.40.
