A hacker who’s been tricking victims into approving them as wallet operators using a phishing website, has accrued 29 Moonbird NFTs from a single wallet. The victim in question goes by the name of ‘Keith ‘Digital Ornithologist,’ a husband and father of three children who described the theft of his ‘hard-earned money from the last 38 years’ as ‘life altering’.
In total, the 29 blue-chip Moonbirds equates to around 750 ETH (or $1.5 million), an amount which, in any other context of life, would be attributed as undeniably substantial if ever stolen. However, as we all know, the NFT space remains a rather ambiguous and unregulated space, irrespective of the fact that a UK court has recently ruled the digital asset as ‘legal property,’ which is why Keith resorted to sending a message to the hacker via an NFT.
In the message, he bargains for the 28 Moonbirds to be returned by the end of the day (25th of May that is), where if not, the police and FBI will be formally notified (with aid from the Proof Collective, an exclusive NFT collector and artist club which he is part of). In an effort to appease the hacker, Keith stated that he’ll allow one Moonbird to be kept as ‘compensation’.
Unfortunately, it appears such demands quite probably will not be met, as Keith has since stated that all of his stolen assets are up for sale on LooksRare.
With regards to how Keith may’ve known of the scammer’s identity, a verified Twitter user who goes by the name of ‘Dollar’ claimed that the alleged culprit ‘DVincent_’ (whose account is now deactivated) is already half doxxed because of their involvement in another NFT theft worth $2 million. Others, such as ‘Just1n.eth’ and ‘Sulphaxyz’ have also suggested that ‘DVincent_’ was part of a malicious site that was fraudulently posing as a ‘p2peer’ platform for completing NFT negotiations.
The duping, which came a just a matter of days after the grand hack of Beeple’s Twitter account, is another harsh reminder to NFT enthusiasts to stay vigilant when dealing with third-party platforms. In addition, and given the fact that the likes of ‘Just1n.eth’ and ‘Sulphaxyz’ have come out to express their familiarity with the alleged culprit, it is quite likely that many other community members have fallen victim to the same malevolent link.
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*All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFT Plazas are from the personal research and experience of our site moderators and are intended as educational material only. Individuals are required to fully research any product prior to making any kind of investment.
