DeFiLlama deliberately got its wallet drained to expose fake app

DeFiLlama’s founder 0xngmi revealed that the company had to take an unusual step to get a fake app impersonating DeFiLlama removed from Apple’s App Store after months of unsuccessful reports.

In a statement, 0xngmi said the team ultimately downloaded the app, loaded a small wallet and allowed it to be drained so they could provide Apple with evidence of the scam. Apple removed the app within days of the report.

We had been trying to take down a fake DefiLlama app on apple’s store for months, telling Apple about trademark violations, impersonation…

Then we loaded a small wallet, downloaded the app, got drained as expected and reported it to Apple.

App was taken down in days after that

— 0xngmi (@0xngmi) August 15, 2026

According to the founder, the fake application was a simple clone of DeFiLlama that asked users for their seed phrase, giving the attacker access to their funds.

The same scammers have targeted other major crypto brands and allegedly used defunct companies for identity verification, including a long-dead family-owned shoe business, he added.

The incident forced DeFiLlama to delay its legitimate app launch by months while it waited for the fake apps to disappear. 0xngmi said the experience was shared to alert other crypto companies to similar impersonation scams and help them avoid the same lengthy process.