More than US$100m worth of non-fungible tokens were stolen in a variety of scams between January and July of this year, according to a new report by the blockchain analysis firm Elliptic. The thieves made off with an average of US$300,000 per scam.
“The most valuable NFT ever stolen is CryptoPunk #4324, which was sold by scammers soon after the theft on 13 November 2021 for US$490,000,” Elliptic reports. “Meanwhile, the largest single heist from an individual victim resulted in the loss of 16 blue-chip NFTs worth US$2.1m on 28 December 2021,” the report says.
Elliptic collected the data on NFT scams through open-source research across major social media sites. According to reports, 23% of the stolen NFTs came from social platforms. For example, Discord was hacked to send phishing messages to members, or phishing scam and malicious websites. Phishing scams, in which users accidentally share the credentials to their cryptocurrency wallet, are the most common. Fraudsters pay to advertise their malicious sites, allowing unwitting people to see them phishing links and click through to scam sites at the very top of search results. In more elaborate scams, Fraudsters would create virtual social media accounts for the NFT, allowing interested parties to browse the fake NFT marketplace or website, and would lure potential buyers with a “smart contract” or token that will drain their account after being accepted. Some scams are to make fake NFTs, mislead consumers to buy, and then deceive to conduct "similar" exchanges, and finally the scammers obtain valuable NFTs.
Most of the NFTs lost in the scam were: Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, Otherside and CloneX. These five collectibles account for two-thirds of the NFTs stolen from July last year to the present, and the cumulative value of BAYC NFTs stolen is US$43.6 million.
The report states that 52% of the NFT scammers it tracks use the Tornado Cash service to launder their loot. The United States already imposed sanctions on virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash in August.
News Source：ARTnews
Photo 1：BAYC ＃8746 © Bored Ape Yacht Club
Photo 2 Top left：Someone stole Jay chou's NFT，BAYC #3738，OpenSea © Bored Ape Yacht Club
Photo 2 middle top：Stolen NFT CryptoPunk #4324，OpenSea © CryptoPunk
Photo 2 Top right：Stolen NFT，BAYC #7203，OpenSea © Bored Ape Yacht Club
Photo 2 bottom left：Someone stole Steven Galanis's NFT，BAYC #9012，OpenSea © Bored Ape Yacht Club
Photo 2 bottom middle：Someone stole America Actor Seth Green's NEF，Doodle #7546 ，OpenSea © Doodle
Photo 2 bottom right：Stolen NFT，BAYC #6623 ，OpenSea © Bored Ape Yacht Club
