https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=scammer-steals-fourteen-bored-apes-from-one-victim-flips-them-for-over-1-million- Skip to timeline Illustration: A sad-looking Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT monkey looks at a world engulfed in flames. Web3 is Going Just Great ...and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already smoldering planet. Follow updates on Twitter, Mastodon, or with RSS Created by Molly White (Twitter, Website) Support my work * What is web3? * Glossary * About this project * Contribute * License and attribution [robber] December 17, 2022 Permalink * Tweet link Scammer steals fourteen Bored Apes from one victim, flips them for over $1 million A Bored Ape with grey fur, wearing a red baseball cap, a green army jacket, and a blindfold over its eyesBAYC #2060, which the scammer claimed to want to license (attribution) A scammer spent a month setting up a con in which they stole fourteen Bored Ape NFTs belonging to one individual. Posing as a casting director at a real film production company--complete with a fake website, a fake partner company, and fake individuals pretending to have signed deals with the company--a scammer was able to convince the collector that they were interested in paying $13,000-$17,000 to license a Bored Ape for use in an animation. After some back-and-forth, with legitimate-looking contracts and falsified emails appearing to come from the real company's real founding director, the NFT collector was asked to use their crypto wallet to sign a contract, via the fake company partner website that had been set up. When the collector did so, the smart contract drained the collector's wallet of its fourteen pricey Bored Ape NFTs, then accepted the highest offers that were outstanding on each of the Bored Apes, netting 852.9 ETH. The scammer converted the stolen ETH to the DAI stablecoin, making off with $1,075,000 in DAI. * Tweet thread by _sevenseason_ * Tweet thread by Serpent Theme tags: Hack or scam Blockchain tags: Blockchain: Ethereum Tech tags: NFT [robber] December 16, 2022 Permalink * Tweet link Raydium exploit results in ~$5 million loss A blue, purple, and turquoise hexagon with an "R" in the middle, followed by white capitals spelling "Raydium"(attribution) An exploit on the Solana-based Raydium decentralized exchange project resulted in a total loss to the platform of $4.4 to $5.5 million. The attacker's actual spoils were less -- somewhere around $2-3.5 million. Raydium claims the exploit was a trojan attack, though they've provided no further evidence to substantiate this. According to Raydium, a trojan allowed an attacker to compromise the private key belonging to the pool owner account. With control over the private key, the attacker was able to withdraw a mix of assets from the pools. They bridged at least $2 million to Ethereum and tumbled them through Tornado Cash; another $1.5 million remained on the Solana chain, where some projects began freezing assets. Raydium has offered a 10% "bug bounty" to the hacker if they return the stolen funds. * "Solana-Based Raydium Exchange Victim of 7-Figure Exploit", CoinDesk * Tweet thread by CertiKAlert Theme tags: Hack or scam Blockchain tags: Blockchain: Solana Tech tags: DeFi [wtf] December 16, 2022 Permalink * Tweet link Auditing firm cuts ties with crypto clients, deletes Binance's "proof of reserves" report they issued days prior The accounting firm Mazars Group has ceased working with cryptocurrency clients, including Binance, KuCoin, and Crypto.com. A statement from the firm attributed their decision to "concerns regarding the way these reports are understood by the public". On December 7, a branch of Mazars Group had published a "proof of reserves" report for Binance -- though it only accounted for Bitcoin, and did not reflect liabilities for Binance's lending product. On December 9, Crypto.com also published a "proof of reserves" report that had been produced by the firm. As of December 16, the Binance audit -- which had been hosted on Mazar's website -- had been deleted. "Proof of reserves" reports have been offered by various cryptocurrency exchanges in lieu of proper audits, but have reasonably failed to reassure many customers of those exchanges. These reports do not involve the scrutiny that would be applied by a full audit -- they only reflect a snapshot of assets at a point in time, and do not show a firm's liabilities. * "Mazars Group suspends all work with crypto clients including Binance, Crypto.com, citing concerns over public perception of proof of reserves", CNBC * "Accountant That Vetted Binance Reserves Halts Crypto Work", Bloomberg Theme tags: Hmm, Shady business December 15, 2022 Permalink Donald Trump teases a "major announcement" that's just NFTs Social media post by Donald Trump: "MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! My official Donald Trump Digital Trading Card collection is here! These limited edition cards feature amazing ART of my Life & Career! Collect all of your favorite Trump Digital Trading Cards, very much like a baseball card, but hopefully much more exciting. Go to collecttrumpcards.com/ & GET YOUR CARDS NOW! Only $99 each! Would make a great Christmas gift. Don't Wait. They will be gone, I believe, very quickly!"Donald Trump NFT announcement (attribution) It's finally happened. The siren song of NFT grifting proved too much for Donald Trump. Trump supporters got all excited when Trump posted on social media to tease a "major announcement". Was he going to run for speaker of the House? Return to Twitter? Unveil a presidential running mate? His supporters were surprised -- and not exactly thrilled -- when the announcement turned out to be a collection of 45,000 NFTs (sorry, "digital trading cards") featuring artwork of himself in heroic outfits and poses. The NFTs are "just" $99 apiece, and money goes to Trump, not his campaign. Even some of his strongest supporters were nonplussed. Steve Bannon said, "I can't do this anymore," and opined that he should fire whoever advised him to make the collection. A source working for Trump said that he is "supposed to be running for president right now", and questioned how "fleecing our supporters for $99" was in service of that goal. Nevertheless, the NFTs seemed to sell decently well, with more than 30,000 minted by that evening. * "Trump's new NFT collection is already losing value in the secondary market", Fast Company * "Donald Trump's 'Major Announcement' Is Grifty NFT Project"The Daily Beast * Tweet by Justin Horowitz Theme tags: Bad idea Blockchain tags: Blockchain: Ethereum, Polygon Tech tags: NFT [wtf] December 13, 2022 Permalink * Tweet link Binance withdrawals surge due to concerns over the company's reserves Binance logo, a yellow diamond next to the word Binance in yellow caps(attribution) Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, processed at least $1.9 billion in withdrawals in a 24-hour period--considerably more than it processes in a typical day. In fact, the company briefly had to pause withdrawals of the stablecoin USDC because they needed to swap various stablecoins in order to continue to process withdrawals--something they could not do while the New York-based bank was closed. These mass withdrawals signal concerns about Binance, whose users are looking for reassurance that the company is not engaged in similarly shady practices as their now bankrupt rival FTX. Recent news that the US Department of Justice is considering criminal charges against the company has not helped reassure customers. * "Binance withdrawals hit $1.9 bln in 24 hours, data firm says", Reuters Theme tags: Hmm December 12, 2022 Permalink Sam Bankman-Fried arrested Sam Bankman-Fried pictured from the shoulders upSam Bankman-Fried (attribution) Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested by Bahamian authorities, who said in a press release that they took the action "follow[ing] receipt of formal notification from the United States that it has filed criminal charges against SBF and is likely to request his extradition". * "FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas after U.S. files criminal charges", CNBC * Tweet by the Director of Communication at the Office of the Prime Minister of The Bahamas Theme tags: Law December 12, 2022 Permalink * Tweet link Argo Blockchain faces possible bankruptcy Two interlocking spirals of orange dots, with the text "Argo Blockchain" in black lowercase(attribution) When the company accidentally published draft bankruptcy documents to its website, Argo Blockchain was forced to reveal that it is in last-ditch negotiations to raise capital. The company stated that they were still hoping to avoid a Chapter 11 filing, but that they were "at risk of having insufficient cash to support ongoing business operations within the next month". The company has been trying to raise $25-35 million since late August, and when a $27 million equity deal fell through in early November, the miner acknowledged it might soon have negative cash flow. As a result of the inadvertent publication of bankruptcy documents, the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq paused trading on the company's stock. The company published a statement saying they had requested trading be re-enabled, since they had not actually filed for bankruptcy (yet). * "Bitcoin Miner Argo Blockchain Says It's Close to Restructuring Without Having to Declare Bankruptcy", CoinDesk * "Restoration of Trading on the London Stock Exchange", Argo Blockchain Theme tags: Collapse December 12, 2022 Permalink * Tweet link U.S. Department of Justice is considering filing criminal charges against Binance Binance logo, a yellow diamond next to the word Binance in yellow caps(attribution) Reuters has reported that the U.S. Department of Justice is considering filing criminal charges against Binance executives, including CEO Changpeng Zhao ("CZ"). This comes as a part of a four-year-long criminal investigation into money laundering and sanctions evasions. According to Reuters, DoJ prosecutors are "split" on whether to take aggressive actions against Binance executives, or to spend more time reviewing evidence. Reuters reports that Binance's defense attorneys have argued, among other things, that "a criminal prosecution would wreak havoc on a crypto market already in a prolonged downturn." Well then. * "Exclusive: U.S. Justice Dept is split over charging Binance as crypto world falters, sources say", Reuters Theme tags: Law, Reporting December 11, 2022 Permalink * Tweet link Decentraland adds that one feature we've all been waiting for: landlords A square made up of blue, grey, and red pixels representing a land mapThis Decentraland plot just sold for $19,000 (attribution) If the idea of dropping thousands of dollars to "own" a plot of "land" in the Decentraland metaverse doesn't do it for you, have I got news for you: Decentraland has just introduced official support to allow its users to become a part of the rentier class. Exciting! In case you were wondering, I checked, and yes. Someone has already come up with the concept of metaverse mortgages. Personally, I'm excited to see other horrific parts of the system of homeownership get recreated virtually. Metaverse homeowners associations. Metaverse building permit red tape. Metaverse NIMBYs. Metaverse property liens. Metaverse neighborhood watch. * "Decentraland will now let you become a virtual landlord", The Block Theme tags: Bad idea Blockchain tags: Blockchain: Ethereum Tech tags: metaverse [robber] December 10, 2022 Permalink * Tweet link Lodestar Finance attacked and drained of nearly $7 million in assets A yellow 8-pointed star formed from interlocking loops, followed by "Lodestar" in light grey capitals(attribution) The Arbitrum-based crypto lending platform Lodestar Finance was attacked by an exploiter who was able to manipulate the price of the plvGLP token, allowing them to "borrow" the entire available liquidity of the Lodestar platform with the inflated token. The attacker made around $6.4 million in profit. Some of the stolen tokens were burned--hence the difference between the attacker profit and the loss to the platform. According to Lodestar, they think they may be able to recover around $2.4 million of the stolen funds. Meanwhile, they have attempted to contact the thief to try to negotiate the return of stolen funds. "We will generously reward your collaboration," they wrote on Twitter. * Tweet thread by LodestarFinance Theme tags: Hack or scam Tech tags: DeFi No JavaScript? That's cool too! Check out the Web 1.0 version of the site to see more entries.