In December 2025, a man in Brooklyn was indicted for stealing nearly $16 million from approximately 100 crypto investors by posing as a Coinbase representative. What made his approach effective enough to work on so many people?

The approach worked because Coinbase is a well-known, trusted brand. Posing as a representative of a company people already trust is a straightforward way to lower someone's guard. Once the victim believed they were talking to official support, the request to move funds or share a seed phrase felt like a reasonable security procedure rather than a theft. This is why the rule is absolute rather than conditional: no one who contacts you claiming to represent a crypto platform and asks for your seed phrase is working for that platform. The brand name makes the scam more convincing, but the rule does not change based on who is asking.