Ari Paul says Coinbase lost his $25M, covered up $1B in hacks

BlockTower Capital founder Ari Paul has accused Coinbase of losing $25 million of his company’s funds while covering up over $1 billion worth of “massive and repeated hacks.”

Paul claims that at least a dozen firms are affected by the alleged cover-up, and that Coinbase “still wouldn’t return our money.”

He also claims that these major allegations are all he can say at the moment as there are “multiple legal processes still ongoing.”

Coinbase “lost” $25m of my firm’s a couple years ago. Turned out they were actually covering up massive and repeated hacks. Still wouldn’t return our money. We traced this to at least a dozen other affected firms and over $1b covered up. That’s all I can say for now as…

Read more: Coinbase and Brian Armstrong are threatening to leave California… again

BlockTower Capital is a crypto and traditional asset investment firm founded in 2017 by Paul and Goldman Sachs executive, Matthew Goetz.

Two executives left the company in 2022 and 2023 for mysterious reasons, while the company also shuttered its $100 million Market-Neutral Fund in 2023.

Paul was responding to a series of posts shared by Cobie, a prominent crypto investor who became a glorified customer support representative for Coinbase.

Cobie was pointing out to X user “Kuno” that they’d been ignoring the crypto exchange’s attempts to reach out to them. 

Kuno, on the other hand, claimed they repeatedly approached Coinbase over $1.2 million it had allegedly stolen. 

Cobie noted that Kuno was promoting a “shitcoin” and that the whole affair looks like “an entirely fake/scam report/engagement farm.”

Cobie hasn’t yet responded to Paul’s allegations.

Coinbase was sued back in May for allegedly withholding $55 million in crypto that was stolen in a draining hack in August 2024. 

The victim claims he lost his crypto after clicking on a malicious link that spoofed Ethereum DeFi management tool “DefiSaver.”

Read more: Coinbase CEO admits content coins were a mistake

From here, he unknowingly authorized a smart contract permission that supposedly gave the thieves control of his crypto wallets.

Protos has reached out to Coinbase for comment and will update this piece should we hear anything back.

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