Users thought they were signing up for an affordable NFT drop by the famed artist, timed to coincide with his second Christie’s auction.
An admin account for Beeple’s official Discord group was compromised overnight resulting in a fake NFT drop that saw users lose an estimated 38 ETH.
An admin from Beeple’s Discord named “Multi” confirmed to the group on Nov. 10 that their account had been compromised despite having 2FA. The perpetrator went on to impersonate Multi and the Beeple Announcements Bot to promote a fake NFT drop from Beeple on Nifty Gateway.
The incident is the latest in a long line of Discord hacks that have caused users substantial losses.
Discord members were primed to expect Beeple to run a cheap drop on the back of his most recent auction since he has done it before, with raffles that saw users snap up his NFTs for as little as $1. Fans kept tabs on the the Discord channel and Beeple’s Twitter all day for a chance to snap up some bargain NFTs.
Discord member “NFT Simon” told Cointelegraph he had his Metamask wallet set up and was ready to pounce just in case.
“When the post came up on the Official Beeple Discord, from the verified Beeple Bot and the verified Administrator with a link to a Nifty Gateway website I didn’t blink twice. I headed over and proceeded to mint as much and as fast as I could,” he said.
NFT Simon nabbed six Beeple NFTs — or so he thought — but was unable to view them on his Nifty account. Back on Discord he was dismayed to find the fake admin was writing in all caps.
“I was greeted to a multiple explicit Gifs of naked men coming from multiple users. It was clearly a scam and someone had hacked Beeple’s Discord.”
After an hour or so the original admin regained control of their login and the chat turned to outing the hackers wallets and reporting them to Binance. “Then we all watched them slowly but surely cash out our money, it was all too late,” he said.
Etherscan shows the alleged hacker’s wallet only has $9,121.54 remaining and that 25 ETH was moved abruptly. Users report more ETH was lost however.
Members of the Discord group provided a mixed reaction today, with some being reasonably calm that Beeple would sort the issue out, while others lamented over the fact that they “FOMO’d” in without thinking.
“I still don’t own a Beeple. I know Beeple stood up for the community once when we crashed Makers Place, who knows how or if he will right things this time. I’d certainly prefer six Beeples over my ETH back,” said NFT Simon.
Beeple’s official account did not address the incident directly but posted a pinned message reading: “To everyone new, please know I will never be like HEY QUICK BUY THIS!!!!”
In response to the lack of communication, one user wrote that instead of a pinned message a “calming and understanding announcement would make things easier to accept.”
“This was not a simple DM with a link, but a major security breach with no mods present that continued for about an hour.”
Cointelegraph has contacted the Discord admins for comment.
