A virus disguised as a game on Steam is likely to cost a streamer with cancer $30,000 in donations.
An incident is currently rocking the streaming community and causing a great deal of mistrust: a streamer suffering from cancer raised over $30,000 in donations for his treatment through his livestreams, only to lose all the money within minutes, according to his own statements.
The reason is said to have been a game that he downloaded live on Steam on the advice of a viewer and which turned out to be malware. While the streamer is devastated, the incident is dividing the community: Was it a tragic hack or a staged scam?
What exactly happened?
The streamer, known as “rastalandTV,” hosted a donation stream on the extremely controversial crypto platform pump.fun. His community donated over $32,000 in the form of “creator fees,” a cryptocurrency tied to his stream.
During the live broadcast, a viewer persuaded him to play the game Block Blasters
on Steam. Shortly after installation, the streamer noticed that his entire crypto balance had been transferred from his digital wallet.
For anybody wondering what is going on with $CANCER live stream… my life was saved for a whole 24 hours until someone tuned into my stream and got me to download a verified game on @Steam
After this, I was drained of over $32,000 USD of my creator fees earned on @pumpdotfun and… pic.twitter.com/8YH4njd46E— rastaland.TV (@rastalandTV) September 21, 2025
Research in the community quickly confirmed that Block Blasters was a fake game deliberately placed on Steam as malware, but has since been removed. According to user vx-underground on X, the game contained a script file that searched the user’s computer for crypto wallet login credentials and sent them to the scammers.
Chat, I’m not a video game developer, but this file looks strange. Why does this video game contain a .bat file that looks for your browser credentials and crypto wallets? https://t.co/QvKWrRdhDu pic.twitter.com/WrhRML5yl5
— vx-underground (@vxunderground) September 21, 2025
Fraud or tragic hack?
Although the existence of the malware and the streamer’s cancer, which he has been documenting on his social media channels for months, are undisputed, many users are skeptical about the streamer’s account.
The doubts stem primarily from the origin of the money: The pump.fun platform is notorious in the crypto scene for so-called “pump and dump” schemes, in which prices are artificially inflated and then quickly sold off again.
Some critics accuse the streamer of staging the whole drama to elicit sympathy and receive further donations. Some even go so far as to speculate that he programmed and released the malicious game himself in order to transfer the funds to his own wallet unnoticed.
Wait a minute, he says he got his cancer funds through pumpdotfun. Isn’t that a notorious scam website that carries out rug pulls? Are we sure this isn’t just a publicity stunt to attract attention to new crypto rug pulls under the pretext that he needs money now?
– coolbad96Yeah, call me jaded, but I don’t trust anything anymore. If anything, this could just be a sympathy ploy to get crowdfunding money, or God knows what.
– InquistorMeowSo the streamer developed a game that emptied his bank account and made it look like he had been hacked. Very clever, the police will definitely get involved if the insurance company does.
– garifunuu
However, new research from the community strongly contradicts this fraud theory: X user “Downsin Jerome” analyzed the blockchain transaction of the theft and made a crucial discovery: the recipient wallet that received the streamer’s $32,000 also received funds from another fraud case.
Another streamer who was also active on pump.fun was apparently stolen from in exactly the same way. Investigations revealed that this victim had also downloaded the game Block Blasters.
A https://t.co/brQIxmltmd streamer that I’ve known for years, @rastalandTV, who has stage 4 cancer, had his creator fees drained by downloading a Steam game (which turned out to be malicious even though it was on Steam).
I’m not saying buy the coin right now because the hacker… pic.twitter.com/h7z9aPNVLq
— Downsin Jerome (@DeFiDownsin) September 21, 2025
Even if we can’t say for sure, this discovery at least suggests that this is not an isolated case or a self-staged scam, but rather a targeted campaign.
One or more attackers appear to be specifically targeting streamers on the pump.fun platform and using the game on Steam as bait – after all, the attackers know for sure that their victims have a crypto wallet on their PC.
Officially, Steam and Valve have not yet commented on the incident or the general security concerns. However, what is particularly explosive is the fact that the game Block Blasters has been available on the platform since the end of July 2025 and initially received positive user reviews, even though these most likely came from bots.
Nevertheless, it is deeply disturbing that such malware not only passes Valve’s verification process, but can then remain undetected for weeks on the world’s largest distribution platform for PC games.
