Web3 Builders Lose Dozens of High-Value NFTs in Back-to-Back Attacks

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Two prominent Web3 builders lost dozens of high-value non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to scammers over the past few days after their crypto wallets were compromised.

The first victim was NFT collector CryptoNovo, who tweeted on Tuesday that he had been hacked.

The attacker appears to have made off with a hefty haul – three CryptoPunks, a Bored Ape, a Mutant Ape, three Meebits and two CloneX NFTs.

Within 16 hours of taking over the wallet, the new owner was able to sell all ten NFTs for a total of 492.66 ETH, worth around $618,000 at the time of writing. The funds were then apparently transferred to an account on crypto exchange ChangeNOW, according to on-chain sleuth ZachXBT.

It appears that an attacker may have also taken over CryptoNovo’s Discord account in an attempt to steal more funds.

“DO NOT send anything to anyone using my name and account number!” CryptoNovo said in a tweet. “The Discord you see below is a fake account.”

Another attacker had targeted Nikhil Gopalani, chief operating officer at RTFKT, an NFT project now owned by Nike. According to Gopalani, his wallet was drained due to a phishing scam.

It appears that two wallets drained Gopalani’s collection, making off with 19 CloneX NFTs, 18 RTKFT Space Pods, 17 Loot Pods, 11 CryptoKicks and 19 RTFKT Animus Eggs. Not all of the NFTs have been sold, and it is difficult to estimate the exact value of each NFT, though the collection is likely worth upwards of $140,000, based on the current floor prices of each collection.

Neither CryptoNovo nor Gopalani immediately responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment.

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Eli is a news reporter for CoinDesk. He holds ETH, SOL and AVAX.

Eli is a news reporter for CoinDesk. He holds ETH, SOL and AVAX.