In late 2023, Coinbase Wallet, the self-custody crypto wallet service from Coinbase, significantly enhanced its security by incorporating the Blockaid security tool.
This strategic move, unveiled in a joint announcement to Cointelegraph on March 13, aims to fortify the digital assets of Coinbase users by introducing an additional layer of protection.
The collaboration between Coinbase Wallet and Blockaid has led to the safeguarding of over $75 million in user funds from potential theft.
This achievement was made possible by the integration of Blockaid’s technology, which effectively intercepted nearly 800,000 dubious wallet connections to harmful decentralized applications (DApps), after scrutinizing 114 million transactions and DApp interactions.
Ido Ben Natan, Blockaid’s CEO, shared with Cointelegraph the methodology behind quantifying the protected funds.
By analyzing the malevolent transactions at the wallet level and evaluating the transaction values at the time, Ben Natan affirmed, “We are able to confidently say that the minimum number of funds saved for users is over $75 million.”
Raz Niv, Blockaid’s CTO, referred to this figure as the “lower band” of detected scams for Coinbase Wallet users, emphasizing the calculation process based on transaction warning screens provided to users, which prevented these transactions.
An essential feature introduced through this integration is the enhanced transaction simulation capability, which predicts the outcomes of transactions before their execution on the blockchain.
READ MORE: Grayscale Proposes New Bitcoin Mini Trust to Offer Tax-Efficient Investment Option
This technology is crucial for averting cryptocurrency scams and thefts, as it enables users to foresee the implications of their transactions.
This predictive feature is bolstered by the use of three Blockaid application programming interfaces (APIs), enhancing security during the navigation of DApps, executing Web3 protocol transactions, and on-chain messaging.
The partnership has notably improved transaction simulation capabilities across seven blockchain networks, including Ethereum and six Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chains like Base, Optimism, and Polygon, as highlighted by Chintan Turakhia, Coinbase’s senior director of engineering.
Despite the advancements in transaction simulation technology, the report underscores the necessity of validation to ensure comprehensive protection against malicious activities, adding an extra layer of security by alerting users about potentially harmful transactions.
The adoption of Blockaid’s security measures is not exclusive to Coinbase Wallet.
MetaMask, another major EVM wallet, incorporated Blockaid’s security alerts in November 2023 and expanded its default security features to several blockchains by February 2024, marking a significant step forward in the collective effort to enhance the security of cryptocurrency transactions across the industry.
To submit a crypto press release (PR), send an email to sales@cryptointelligence.co.uk.
