The gate theblockcrypto.com reported on September 30 that a young digital art artist allegedly committed a scam by selling fake non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and disappearing with user funds.
Emojis for $ 144,000
The unknown would have promised to create 8,000 NFT within a collection called Iconics. The works consisted of 3D images of various characters. The artist uploaded 14 digital images to Discord. He then offered 2,000 works at 0.5 SOL, or about $ 144.00 at current exchange rates. After the presale started, the NFTs were gone very quickly, but instead of the promised digital artwork, users were given collections of simple emojis.
📢In light of recent events 🥴📢
Anyone who got rugged the ICONICS project can participate in this giveaway and win a piece from the upcoming collection. These scam tokens will also give you the possibility of a mint pass for a future drop#SolanaNFTs #NFTs pic.twitter.com/oL1kvdS38C
– 0xDRIP (@ 0x_DRIP) September 30, 2021
After that, the project chat was disabled and Iconics’ Twitter account was deleted. According to theblockcrypto.com, the funds received from the sale have already been distributed to several addresses.
“It’s a mess! Iconics just disappeared. He pre-sold 2,000 NFT at 0.5 SOL and left with 1,000 SOL. Sorry, everyone who lost [des fonds] because of that. I also lost some because the NFTs were very nice. Lesson learned, ”NFT collector Sol Big Brain tweeted.
Damn.. @IconicsSol just RUGGED. Did a presale for 2K at .5 and made off with I think 1000 SOL.
FUCK YOU SCAMMERS !!
Sorry to anybody who took the L here. I minted a bunch also as art looked good. Lesson Learned.
Onwards, with that out of the way lets focus on the GOOD STUFF!
– S ◎ L Big Brain (@SOLBigBrain) September 30, 2021
The victims of the fraud created their own Discord channel to discuss what had happened and try to continue the project. Sol Big Brain reached out to other NFT writers in the Solana community with a proposal to donate some of their shows to support the victims. He felt that this would be “good publicity” for the collections. Several projects responded to his call, offering their tokens in exchange for fake NFTs.
Confidence in NFT falls
Scammers are wasting no time actively using the media boom around NFTs. A month ago, a fraudster sold a fake Banksy NFT on the OpenSea Marketplace for $ 338,000. Due to high profile criminal cases in this area, many businessmen and celebrities are against non-fungible tokens.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has spoken out strongly against NFTs, noting that the industry is “full of fraud and deception.” He also admitted that he did not understand the exact value of owning images and “gifs” in the form of non-fungible tokens. Additionally, Sweeney questioned the non-fungibility of NFTs, which sparked a debate on social media. At the same time, many people supported Sweeney and felt that the industry was lacking in important and reliable players like Epic Games who could build trust in NFT and take the industry to a new level.
There are many fraudulent schemes in the NFT space. Recall that recently, following a phishing attack against users of the NFT Aurory project on Solana, a scammer stole assets worth more than a million dollars.