YouTuber Turned NFT Scammer? On-Chain Sleuth Investigates $1.5 Million Crypto Thief

Blockchain detective ZachXBT has implicated a YouTuber with over 120,000 subscribers in over $1.5 million worth of crypto scams over the past two years.

Some of those scams are connected to the infamous Monkey Drainer, an anonymous and boastful phishing scammer known for stealing people’s NFTs.

Linking “Blue” to Monkey Drainer

Before entering the world of crypto scams in July 2021, the scammer – known as either “BlueXBT” or “JB Adventures” (Jack) – had grown his YouTube following “by uploading gaming and trolling videos,” tweeted ZachXBT on Monday.

The on-chain sleuth connected Jack to the ENS address cool-breeze.eth, which he was shown publicly sharing in a leaked image from his Snapchat account.

That same address purchased BAYC 8668 in October 2022. However, had also received inflows of over 85 ETH from 8 Ethereum addresses connected to Monkey Drainer’s phishing scams.

Monkey Drainer is known for stealing over $24 million worth of NFTs using a technique called “ice phishing.” With this tactic, rather than soliciting a victim’s private keys directly, one baits them into signing a transaction that gives the hacker control of a user’s funds, using fraudulent crypto and NFT websites.

In November, CryptoPotato reported that Monkey Drainer has stolen over 1200 ETH worth of NFTs, including from collections like BAYC, CryptoPunks, and Otherside.

ZachXBT shared screenshots from Discord in which Blue bragged about his BAYC purchase, while also instructing his workers assisting with his scams.

5/ On Discord Blue flexed his BAYC purchase and would share his methods scamming.

The second and third screenshot is from an internal Discord server where Blue would instruct his workers. pic.twitter.com/l22ZubSCAc

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) July 10, 2023

“Unfortunately Blue was robbed of his BAYC in late 2022 after allegedly scamming Monkey out of his cut from a phishing scam,” continued ZachXBT.

Blue’s Scams

Blue got back to scamming in short order, however, using new ENS addresses. He spent his stolen funds on luxury items like cars, watches, and shoes, while using others to gamble on Stake.

One of Blue’s more recent scams included 61.5k ETH and 93.3k USDT stolen rom LoveMake.eth. “Blue received 49 ETH and 74K USDT for himself after the drainer fee,” said ZachXBT.

Another included a Milady & Squiggle NFT phished from yancey.eth to Blue’s ENS purplelobster.eth. The NFTs were worth roughly 12 ETH, of which Blue kept 10.3 ETH after the drainer fee.

“It’s disgusting to see these phishing scammers show zero remorse and spend the funds on tasteless items,” concluded ZachXBT. He said that information about Blue (Jack) has been shared with many of his victims to help eventually bring legal action against him.