The hunter has become the hunted. After criminals tried to blackmail Coinbase by demanding $20 million in Bitcoin not to spill the details of a data robbery, the crypto giant has turned around and offered the same sum to whoever turns them in. At a time when crypto crime remains rampant, Coinbase's gambit is a bold if unconventional attempt to punish those who carry it out.
In a company blog post published on Thursday morning, Coinbase revealed that criminals had bribed overseas customer support agents to hand over records, including customer addresses, phone numbers, government IDs and partial details of bank and Social Security records. The company says the stolen data—which did not include log-in credentials or access to wallets—represented fewer than 1% of active monthly transacting customers. Based on Coinbase's latest earnings report, that means fewer than 84,000 customers were affected.
