NFTs were supposed to be fantastic things, assisting artists in maintaining control over their own work. But whatever integrity the NFTs industry may have had has also seemingly blossomed and crashed in recent years. The production of fake and fraudulent artwork is out of control, targeting artists and customers. NFTs have been stolen from buyers during phishing attacks, and artists’ own work has been stolen and unjustly minted as an NFT. It certainly seems simple to game the system for a technology that is so fixated on being reliable and valued.
1. Seth Green Gets Phished
Four of Seth Green’s most valued NFTs were accidentally destroyed during a phishing scheme, which targets actors, writers, and producers. Green admitted on Twitter that he had fallen victim to phishing on a fake version of Gutter Cats, a website with NFTs resembling Bored Apes that includes pictures of dogs and cats with tattoos and piercings. Until the situation was handled, Green urged consumers to refrain from buying or trading the stolen NFTs. Green asked DarkWing84 to get in touch with him to “fix it” after DarkWing84 purchased one of the NFTs.
2. 86,000 Plagiarized NFTs
Aja Trier is a Texas-born artist who specializes in vibrant and imaginative renditions of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” frequently with cats and dogs in the foreground. Trier alleged on Twitter in January 2022 that her work had been stolen and licensed almost 86,000 times on one of the most well-known NFT hubs, OpenSea. Trier reported the violation to the DMCA and tweeted that they believed bots were to blame. Although Trier confirmed later that month that someone had been using her name to sell NFTs of her own work, OpenSea had been able to erase the collection of her stolen work.
3. Bored Ape Yacht Flub
One of the biggest collections of NFTs, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, was the target of a phishing attack in April. In according with CoinDesk, the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Instagram and Discord were hacked using a link that was distributed to users and directed them to a clone of the official Bored Ape Yacht Club website. The scammers’ wallet was linked to the users’ MetaMask wallet in this instance, and the rest is history. 54 NFTs worth $13.7 million, according to CoinDesk, were taken.
4. More Than 80%
Being able to avoid OpenSea’s “gas fee,” or rather the price a miner must pay to write data to the blockchain, was one of the advantages of listing NFTs there. Artists might utilize a tool on OpenSea’s website to mint their creations without having to pay the gas price. However, 80% of the artwork produced by the lazy minting programme was spam or a copy of another piece, according to a tweet from OpenSea in January. In February, they later explained that 80% of the NFTs the website eliminates are spam or plagiarised, suggesting that the actual rate of copied work may be greater.
5. The August Sander 10K Collection
The Museum of Modern Art now has photographs by German photographer August Sander on display. The “August Sander 10K Collection” was a recent archiving project that included Sander’s work. Sander’s great-grandson Julian would make his work accessible as NFTs on OpenSea. The collection (which included more than 10,000 pieces of August Sander’s images) was immediately removed from OpenSea because, according to The Art Newspaper, Julian Sander does not appear to be the owner of the copyright of August Sander’s work.
6. Dinosaurs with a Watermark
A paleoartist is a person who specializes in creating artwork that depicts dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Corbin Rainbolt is one such person. Rainbolt tweeted in March 2021 that he had no idea one of his paintings had been posted as an NFT. As a result, he cleaned up his Twitter and posted his work again with watermarks. However, according to Vice, in a terrible turn of events, his tweet lamenting the theft of his artwork was misinterpreted as an NFT.
Rapid development sparks the rapid growth of fraud. As a result, scammers perceive more opportunities to scam active users. Make sure you take proper precautions when you decide to invest in NFTs to avoid getting caught in trouble.
