PI has been in a persistent downtrend since reaching an all-time high of $3 on February 26. In fact, it has traded below a descending trendline since April 12, highlighting the negative bias against the altcoin.
However, the tide may finally be turning. Technical indicators now point to a potential bullish resurgence, hinting at a PI rebound in the short term.
PI’s Quiet Accumulation Phase Could Trigger a Rally
BeInCrypto’s assessment of the PI/USD one-day chart suggests that the altcoin may be preparing for a bullish breakout. For example, its on-balance volume (OBV) has spiked over the past two days, showing early signs of accumulation.
The OBV indicator uses trading volume to predict price movements, adding volume on up days and subtracting it on down days. When its value rises like this, it suggests a surge in buying pressure.
OBV is considered a leading indicator, meaning it often moves ahead of price action and can signal shifts in market sentiment before they are reflected in the asset’s price. Therefore, PI’s rising OBV indicates that buyers are quietly accumulating the token, even as its price remains subdued.
This divergence signals that bullish momentum is building, increasing the likelihood of a PI breakout once broader market sentiment aligns.
Furthermore, the red bars forming PI’s BBTrend indicator have gradually shrunk. This reduction suggests that selling pressure is weakening, serving as an early signal that the current downtrend may be losing steam.
In technical analysis, a contraction in the BBTrend histogram is a precursor to a potential trend reversal, especially when accompanied by rising volume and other bullish indicators.
As the bars shorten, it indicates that volatility is stabilizing in the PI market and that a bullish shift in price is increasingly likely.
PI for Reversal as Bullish Signals Point to $1 Breakout
PI currently trades at $0.591, resting below its descending trend line, which forms resistance above it at $0.605. If bullish pressure strengthens and PI demand rockets, it could flip this price point into a support floor and climb toward $1.01.
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.
Smart Money wallets have been aggressively offloading TRUMP, BNKR, and PWEASE in the last seven days, raising red flags for these trending tokens. TRUMP has faced the heaviest pressure, with over $380,000 in net outflows, as its price remains stuck in a sharp downtrend.
BNKR, despite posting strong weekly gains, has also seen large traders liquidating their positions, signaling potential profit-taking. Meanwhile, PWEASE is experiencing similar bearish flows as larger wallets continue to trim exposure despite the recent buzz around the meme coin.
This steep correction has coincided with notable smart money activity, as key wallets have been heavily exiting their positions. In the last seven days alone, smart money wallets sold $382,660 worth of TRUMP while only buying $1,240, resulting in a sharp net outflow of $381,420.
This imbalance suggests that larger, more informed investors are losing confidence in TRUMP’s short-term prospects, contributing to the downward momentum.
If this corrective trend persists, TRUMP could fall further and retest its next key support level, $9.54. Failure to hold this level may expose the asset to deeper losses.
However, if TRUMP manages to reverse its current bearish trend and regain bullish momentum, it could attempt to challenge resistance at $12.51.
A successful breakout above this level may open the door for a move towards $13.88. If buying pressure strengthens further, TRUMP could rally back up to $17.75, reclaiming levels closer to where it was trading before the recent downturn.
BankrCoin (BNKR)
BNKR has surged by 19% over the past week, positioning itself as one of the top-performing AI coins and one of the most talked-about assets on the Base chain.
This recent rally has drawn significant attention, helping BNKR stand out in a competitive market. However, despite the price increase, smart money wallets have shown mixed behavior—while they purchased $75,700 worth of BNKR in the last seven days, they also offloaded $213,730, resulting in a net outflow of $138,000.
This suggests that although BNKR is trending, larger investors may be capitalizing on the recent rally to secure profits.
If this selling pressure persists, BNKR could lose its recent momentum and slip below key support levels at $0.00019 or even $0.00018, marking its lowest levels since mid-February.
On the other hand, if BNKR manages to reignite the bullish sentiment that fueled last week’s gains, it could retest resistance at $0.000225.
A breakout above this level could pave the way for a further move toward $0.000282, signaling a strong continuation of its upward trend.
PWEASE
PWEASE, a Solana meme coin satirizing US Vice President JD Vance, has been drawing attention amid volatile market conditions.
Over the past seven days, smart money wallets have shown a bearish stance. They purchased $166,720 worth of PWEASE but sold $291,000 in the same period, resulting in a net outflow of $124,320.
This suggests that while the token has gained some traction, larger investors are currently leaning towards reducing their exposure, adding selling pressure to the coin.
If this corrective trend continues, PWEASE could move lower and test the key support at $0.0125. If that level fails to hold, a deeper decline toward $0.0059 may follow.
However, should PWEASE manage to attract renewed buying interest and reverse the downtrend, it could push up to challenge resistance at $0.0295.
A breakout above this level could open the door for further upside toward $0.040, signaling a potential shift back to bullish momentum for the meme coin.
