The South Korean-based cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, made headlines today due to an unexpected scam. The exchange’s system mistakenly accepted a counterfeit token as a genuine Aptos token, and once the situation was realized, the deposit and withdrawal operations for Aptos tokens were suspended.
Initial findings started when an account with the username “Definalist” reported the error to the exchange. The exchange stated that it promptly halted Aptos transactions upon encountering such an anomaly.
Scammers were found to be operating through a fake website named ClaimAPTGift.com. Through this site, fraudulent tokens were sent to approximately 400,000 Aptos wallets. Even worse, Upbit processed these counterfeit tokens as if they were legitimate Aptos tokens.
This technical mishap led to sudden drops in the price of Aptos. Notably, the APT price on ByBit surged by over 30% in a short time, but this only lasted for three hours. According to CoinGecko statistics, following this incident, Aptos had the highest trading volume on Upbit in the last 24 hours.
Source: The Block
