NFT theft fell 23% in June as Fraudsters stole $2.27m worth of NFTs
NFTs in recent months have not been the hottest trends like they used to be in 2022 and 2021. The activities of fraudsters operating in the space also appeared to suffer a decline in June, as a reported $2.27 million worth of NFTs were stolen. This represented a 23% decline in NFT theft compared to the previous month.
This was according to an analysis by PeckShield’s. The analysis revealed that fraudulent activities were higher in May when a record of $2.95 million worth of NFTs were stolen. Interestingly, half of the stolen NFTs have allegedly been sold on various marketplaces within a span of three hours of the theft, as reported by the blockchain security firm.
Per the report, notable marketplaces like Blur emerged as hotspots where almost 86% of the stolen funds were sold, closely followed by OpenSea with a percentage of 13.76.
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Nonetheless, the floor prices of NFT collections like Azuki Elementals, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), DeGods, and Otherdeed have declined. The perception is that the market conditions present a golden opportunity to gather many NFTs at very low prices.
Lookonchain revealed that a whale under the pseudonym “Machi Big Brother” raked in 84 Azuki NFTs over the past day to become the second-largest holder. Considering the overall exploits in the digital asset industry, June was ranked the second-highest month this year. The fraudsters were able to steal over $92 million across 42 hacks.
Nikhil Gopalani, the COO of RTFKT, lost NFTs totaling $173,000 from his wallet earlier this year in what appears to have been a phishing attack. An inquiry later revealed that Gopalani might have unintentionally given private data to a hacker posing as an Apple employee.
The NFT market is still dominated by phishing, scam projects, stolen and plagiarized NFTs, market manipulation, and rug pulls. NFTs valued at more than $100 million were stolen throughout 2022.
The Most Common NFT Scams in 2023
These are the most common NFT scams recorded in 2023.
- Rug-Pull Scam: This refers to a fraudulent act where an NFT is overtly hyped by developers, but these developers pull out after generating significant funds from investors. In 2023, this has been one of the ways NFT owners have recorded losses. What these developers do is excessively hype this NFT via their respective social media accounts, gathering a group of investors who are hugely and financially invested in the project. When they have gathered enough funds, they abruptly shut down the venture project and disappear into thin air with the funds collected.
- Phishing Scams: This refers to the operations of hackers, which include gaining access to your NFT account details. What they do is share and send links many times through email or popular social media channels, so once you click on these falsified links and enter your details, the hackers use keylogging or spyware to gain entry to your account and do whatever they wish with it. This has been one of the ways hackers have stolen NFTs in 2023.
- Plagiarized NFTs: The foundation of NFTs is the creation of distinct digital tokens. It is from this distinctiveness that these digital tokens derive their value. However, once an NFT gets plagiarized, it loses every speck of value it once boasted of. Plagiarizing NFTs is a common menace on many NFT platforms. As such, traders must be very careful about getting sold a plagiarized NFT. What happens when you buy a fake NFT is that its value tanks and instantly becomes worthless.
