NFTs are still a relatively new phenomenon, but they’ve already provided celebrities with a new source of income (or to just bore TV audiences).
It has also been a target for thieves and con artists. A fan of non-fungible tokens, whose Twitter account was actually “ILovePonzi,” lost a big collection to a scammer earlier this month. On Saturday, the NFT community was alarmed by hackers who had taken roughly $2 million in digital goods.
According to Vice, someone or someones have been stealing and selling NFTs on OpenSea, the internet’s largest digital collectibles trade. A notice on the service urged users not to “click links outside of opensea.io,” and to “not click links outside of opensea.io.” Those that were hacked lost a number of high-end NFTs:
According to blockchain records, the attacker was able to free transfer a large number of NFTs from other users to their address. NFTs from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and other well-known collections were among those stolen. Some of the NFTs have already been sold by the attacker, such as this NFT from the Azuki collection, which sold for 13.4 ETH ($36,380). More than 600 ETH worth approximately $2 million are currently in the attacker’s wallet.
However, the hacker(s) did end up returning some of the NTFs they had stolen. Except for one token, which remains locked on OpenSea, a large number of tokens were refunded to a single user. Customers of the service have been obliged to upgrade to a new contract, which addresses a vulnerability that allowed hackers to steal valuable digital treasures from unwitting users. So, if you’ve spent a lot of money on Bored Apes, be cautious.
