NFT Owners Asked to Stay Mindful After 29 Moonbirds Were Stolen

It seems that with time, it’s become easier for crypto scammers and culprits to get away with cryptocurrency thefts. A Proof Collective member is the latest victim of a cryptocurrency scam, wherein he lost 29 highly-valuable Ethereum-based Moonbird collectibles. According to a recent tweet by Cirrus on May 25, the member lost 29 Moonbird NFTs (non-fungible tokens) worth $1.5 million or 750 ETH after he clicked on a malicious link shared by the culprit.

In another made by Twitter personality and NFT holder Dollar, it was highlighted that the scammer is already half doxxed by the cryptocurrency platform and that Proof Collective and its users are actively working on a full report to the FBI. Another user called Just1n.eth said that while he was trying to negotiate the deal, the trader urged him on using a fishy peer-to-peer (P2P) platform to initiate the transaction. Sulphaxyz, another user, claimed the same thing happened to him as well and recognized the scammer as the same culprit.

It’s still uncertain how many innocent NFT holders the culprit has dupped in the past, but it’s an important reminder that even the most tech-savvy NFT investors need to be vigilant when it comes to such culprits.

Recent Reported Scams

The recent cryptocurrency scams are a harsh reminder for all investors to be cautious when finalizing deals with third-party platforms, and to check if the said platforms are trustworthy. Moreover, all NFT holders should double-check if anything has been shared by other investors regarding such platforms.

Cryptocurrency scams like these are common in the space, especially on Twitter. Back in March, a phishing scam hacked the Twitter accounts of many verified users to wipe off over $1 million in a fraudulent Apecoin airdrop.

Last week, the Twitter account of digital and NFT artist Mike Winklemann, otherwise known as Beeple, was hacked in a two-phase phishing attack. His account was hacked to share a fake trading link presumably to a website of the famous fashion brand Louis Vuitton. (Beeple first partnered with the fashion designer back in 2019.) The phishing link was aimed at stealing funds off the wallets of cryptocurrency holders. The first scam in the two-part attack wiped off nearly $73,000 (or 36 ETH), while the second scam drained approximately $125,000 in ETH, $75,000 in WETH, and $166,000 in NFTs. This brought the total stolen funds to nearly $438,000 in cryptocurrency and NFTs from the compromised Beeple account.

Beeple — renowned for his rare digital creations — sold three of the top 10 most expensive crypto artworks in the history of the cryptocurrency market. In 2021, he sold an NFT creation for around $69.3 million at Christie’s auction house, which broke all records in the crypto space. Another time, he partnered with pop singer Madonna for his horror-inducing NFT. In another crypto scam, scammers hacked an admin account on his Discord channel to launch a fake NFT collectible, resulting in the overall loss of nearly 38 ETH.

In the beginning of this month, cybersecurity organization Malwarebytes reported in its study that there has been an increase in crypto scams and thefts to capitalize on NFT mania. According to the company, scammers carried out the scams through fraudulent websites and third-party platforms disguised as genuine platforms.