Table of Contents
- Meet the New Boss: The Rise of Vanilla
- A Hacker’s Business Model: The Math of Deception
- The Great Vanishing Act: Adapt, Rebrand, Repeat
- A Warning for All of Us
The New King of Crypto Scams: How “Vanilla” Stole $5 Million in Just Three Weeks
It’s a new day in the crypto world, but some of the old problems are still lurking. Just when security experts thought they were getting a handle on digital scams, a new player has emerged, and it’s making a name for itself by stealing a breathtaking amount of money in a shockingly short time.
In a detailed new investigation, a blockchain researcher has attributed at least $5.27 million in stolen crypto over a three-week period to a new fraud-as-a-service tool called Vanilla Drainer. As a journalist who has been covering this space for years, I’ve seen a lot of these scams come and go. But Vanilla is different. It’s not just a new name; it’s a new, more sophisticated breed of scammer that is rapidly taking over the market.
This is a story about a hidden economy of deception, a dangerous game of cat and mouse, and a powerful reminder that in the world of crypto, your biggest enemy might be a single, malicious link.
Meet the New Boss: The Rise of Vanilla
In the world of crypto scams, a “drainer” is a software service that allows a scammer to drain a victim’s wallet once they click on a phishing link. These services are like a black market toolkit for fraudsters, and they’ve been responsible for billions in losses.
For a while, it seemed like security services were winning. Top drainers like Inferno and Pink were either shut down or saw their profits decline. But as blockchain investigator Darkbit reveals, the drainers are constantly adapting.
Darkbit, who has been tracking Vanilla’s activity, says the new service is “taking over a lot of Inferno’s clients.” He warns that “most of the six and seven-figure outflows recently can be attributed to Vanilla Drainer.”
Vanilla’s first known public ad, which is now offline, appeared in December 2024. In a brazen display of confidence, it claimed to have an “advanced algorithm” that could bypass Blockaid, a major anti-fraud platform that has been a thorn in the side of scammers for years.
This isn’t just a marketing gimmick. Vanilla’s biggest score to date was a single phishing attack on August 5 that stole $3.09 million in stablecoins from one victim. This single incident is a powerful example of the kind of financial damage that these new, more sophisticated drainers are capable of.
A Hacker’s Business Model: The Math of Deception
So how does this work? It’s a classic business model, with a dark twist. The drainer service is essentially a fraud-as-a-service business. The creator of the software takes a percentage of every heist as a fee.
In the case of Vanilla, the standard fee is a 20% cut of the stolen funds. In that massive $3.09 million heist, the drainer operators allegedly walked away with $463,000 for providing the software.
But the story doesn’t end there. The drainer’s operators often have a sophisticated money-laundering system. They quickly swap the stolen tokens for a non-custodial, decentralized stablecoin like Dai (DAI), which is pegged to the U.S. dollar but cannot be frozen or seized like centralized stablecoins such as USDT or USDC. They then send these funds to a final collection wallet, effectively making the money nearly impossible to recover. This is a cold, calculated strategy designed to maximize profits and minimize risk.
The Great Vanishing Act: Adapt, Rebrand, Repeat
One of the most insidious aspects of the drainer ecosystem is its ability to adapt and survive. When a drainer gets too much attention, it simply goes quiet, rebrands, or sells its tools to a new operator.
Take the case of Inferno Drainer. It publicly announced its closure in November 2023, but it never really went away. It kept popping up and was later succeeded by a service called Angel Drainer. Even after the official announcement of its shutdown, Inferno-related activity continued for months, causing over $9 million in losses in just six months.
This a chilling reminder that in the crypto scam world, a “closure” announcement is often just a marketing ploy to avoid detection and a signal to the community that the service is still active under a new name.
Darkbit notes that Vanilla is already adopting this tactic, frequently changing its domain names and creating new malicious contracts to avoid detection. It’s a constant cat-and-mouse game, and for the average user, it’s almost impossible to keep up.
A Warning for All of Us
The rapid rise of Vanilla, coupled with the persistence of older scams, is a loud alarm bell for the entire crypto community. While the overall amount of money lost to scams has decreased in 2024, the fact that a single new service can steal millions in a matter of weeks shows that the threat is as potent as ever.
For investigators, the challenge is clear: they have to stay one step ahead of a constantly evolving ecosystem of criminals who are highly motivated and technologically savvy.
For the rest of us, the message is even clearer: Be vigilant. Double-check every link, scrutinize every transaction request, and never, ever connect your wallet to a site you don’t trust. The scammers are getting smarter, and a single moment of carelessness could cost you a life-changing amount of money.
The old scams may have faded, but their successors are more dangerous than ever. And until the industry finds a way to shut down this black market for good, the threat of the next multi-million dollar heist is always just a click away.
Disclaimer
The information provided in this article is for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or other professional advice. The information is based on public data and is not an endorsement of any person, product, or company. The value of cryptocurrencies is highly volatile, and you could lose all of your digital assets. You should always conduct your own research and exercise extreme caution when interacting with crypto websites and wallets.
