Dragonchain’s DRGN rallied 115% today after the SEC dropped its 2022 lawsuit regarding securities violations. Walt Disney launched the project in 2014 and later converted it into an open-source blockchain.
The network combines private and public blockchain elements, allowing businesses to keep sensitive data private while leveraging public blockchains for verification. This design supports compliance with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA.
What is Dragonchain?
Dragonchain began as the “Disney Private Blockchain Platform,” developed by a team led by Joe Roets at Disney’s Seattle office. In 2016, Disney released the project as open-source software.
Following this, Roets and his team established the Dragonchain Foundation and Dragonchain Inc. to further develop and commercialize the platform. Since then, Disney has not been affiliated with the project.
The blockchain became extremely popular in 2016 because of its hybrid architecture and interoperability. Through its patented Interchain technology, Dragonchain enables integration with other blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as legacy systems and APIs.
Dragonchain introduced disruptive blockchain innovation at a time when networks like Solana and Layer-2 didn’t exist. It demonstrated high transaction throughput, processing over 250 million transactions in 24 hours during a live demonstration in 2020.
Most notably, it was ahead of its time. The platform introduced quantum-resistant encryption methods to protect data against future quantum computing threats.
The SEC Lawsuit and $1 Billion Loss
The Walt Disney Corporation is not normally known for its Web3 endeavors, but it has shown interest in several sectors over the last few years.
When Disney controlled the project, it had no cryptoasset element, focusing on pure blockchain infrastructure. Shortly after its independence, however, the firm’s developers launched DRGN.
In October 2017, Dragonchain Inc. launched the DRGN token through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), raising approximately $13.7 million. By January 2018, DRGN’s market cap surged to $1.3 billion.
In 2022, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Dragonchain, focusing on the ICO and alleging unregistered securities offerings. The DRGN token was central to the charges. This marked the beginning of a legally volatile period for the project.
Finally, today, on April 25, 2025, the SEC dropped the lawsuit as part of its wider efforts to reduce crypto enforcement.
The Seven Years’ Wandering finally draws to its close. We were never lost—only laying the ground. Tomorrow, we begin to raise what was always meant to stand.
The announcement sparked a rally in the DRGN market and renewed optimism within the project’s community. The token is up by 115% today and 180% since last week.
Over the last several weeks, Dragonchain’s social media presence has focused on both its blockchain utility and the SEC dismissal.
Dragonchain (DRGN) Price Chart in a Week. Source:
Although the crypto ecosystem has evolved significantly since the lawsuit began, Dragonchain continues to maintain its original commitment to enterprise use cases. It has resisted being labeled as a meme coin and instead emphasizes its enduring focus on practical blockchain applications.
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.
Cardano (ADA) has climbed over 15% in the past week, continuing to push higher despite a 27% drop in trading volume over the last 24 hours. While momentum indicators and whale activity still lean bullish, signs of consolidation are emerging as ADA trades near key support and resistance levels.
Whether ADA breaks higher or pulls back may depend on how it reacts to the critical $0.668–$0.709 range in the coming days.
Is Cardano’s Rally Losing Steam or Just Catching Its Breath?
Cardano Average Directional Index (ADX) is currently at 30.17, easing slightly from yesterday’s 32.76 after a sharp surge from 14.90 two days ago.
Despite the minor pullback in ADX, ADA remains firmly in an uptrend, indicating that bullish momentum is still present, though perhaps cooling slightly after an intense acceleration.
The ADX is a trend strength indicator that ranges from 0 to 100. It does not indicate direction—only the strength of a trend. Readings below 20 suggest a weak or non-existent trend, while values above 25 typically confirm a strong trend.
ADA’s current ADX at 30.17 reflects a healthy uptrend still in play, although the slight dip may suggest the trend’s momentum is stabilizing rather than accelerating.
As long as ADA maintains this level, the uptrend remains intact, but traders should watch for any further decline in ADX that could hint at waning strength.
Cardano Whales Return—Is Accumulation Back On?
The number of Cardano whale addresses—wallets holding between 1 million and 10 million ADA—has slightly increased to 2,408, up from 2,405 on April 22.
This follows a brief decline from 2,421 on April 20, suggesting a small but notable return of larger holders after a short distribution period.
While the change may seem minimal, it marks a potential shift in sentiment among high-stake investors, who often play a key role in driving price trends due to the sheer volume of assets they control.
Addresses Holding Between 1 Million and 10 Million ADA. Source: Santiment.
Tracking whale activity is crucial because these large holders can significantly influence the market. When whales accumulate, it’s often viewed as a sign of confidence and can act as a leading indicator of upward price movement.
Conversely, when whales begin to offload their holdings, it may signal weakening conviction or an expectation of short-term price drops.
The recent uptick from 2,405 to 2,408 may indicate a renewed interest among whales in accumulating ADA, hinting at a possible rebound or continued strength in price—especially if this trend continues.
ADA’s Uptrend Holds, But Key Support Must Survive
According to its EMA lines, Cardano price remains in an uptrend, with short-term moving averages still above the long-term ones—a classic sign of sustained bullish momentum.
This alignment suggests the broader trend favors the bulls despite recent price consolidation.
However, ADA is trading within a tight range, facing resistance at $0.709 and supported at $0.668, setting the stage for a potential breakout or breakdown.
If the $0.668 support is tested and fails, ADA could decline toward the next support level at $0.634, and a deeper slide might push it down to $0.59, marking a more significant correction.
Conversely, a clean break above $0.709 resistance would likely trigger renewed bullish momentum, with the next upside target around $0.77.
AI coins continue to draw strong attention heading into the first week of May, with Story (IP), Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), and GRASS standing out for different reasons.
Story has shown modest gains but remains below the explosive pace set by other AI projects. Conversely, VIRTUAL has surged nearly 90% in just seven days, benefiting from the renewed hype around crypto AI agents.
Story (IP)
Story (IP) is up nearly 5% over the past seven days but has been underperforming compared to other top AI-focused coins in the same period.
While many AI tokens have seen explosive gains recently, Story’s more modest move suggests a slower build in momentum.
Despite the lag, Story remains a project with strong fundamentals and growing relevance in the decentralized content space, making its recent price behavior worth watching closely.
However, if the support holds and momentum improves, IP could rally toward $4.49, and with stronger buying pressure, extend gains to $5.04 or even $6.61.
As AI narratives regain traction across the market, VIRTUAL has positioned itself as one of the top beneficiaries, quickly reclaiming attention after months of quieter trading.
The strong rally highlights the market’s appetite for AI-related projects and puts VIRTUAL in a strong position heading into the next major technical levels.
Currently, VIRTUAL is approaching a key support at $1.008; if this level is lost, the next downside targets would be $0.84 and potentially $0.54 if selling pressure intensifies.
A successful break above this resistance could pave the way for a move to $1.30, and if buying interest remains strong, even $1.50 — a level VIRTUAL has not seen since February 5—could be within reach.
GRASS
GRASS has been underwhelming compared to other major AI coins, with its price moving just 0.4% over the last seven days.
While many AI tokens have posted strong rallies recently, GRASS has remained relatively stagnant, suggesting that bullish momentum has cooled.
Despite the muted performance, GRASS still shows signs of underlying strength, but it remains uncertain whether it can capitalize on the broader AI narrative.
Technically, GRASS’s EMA lines are still bullish, with the short-term averages positioned above the long-term ones, but the gap between them is narrow, hinting that the trend could shift soon.
If selling pressure picks up, GRASS could test the support at $1.63; losing that level could lead to further declines toward $1.56 and even $1.45.
However, if GRASS can gather enough strength to test and break above the $1.74 resistance, it could open the door for a move higher to $1.82 and potentially $1.90.
