Two fraudulent Twitter accounts posing as CryptoPunk and Azuki whales have stolen more than $136,500 (80.3 ETH) in the last 30 days. The exposure is the latest in a series of hacks and scams in the world of cryptocurrencies.
Fake Giveaways and Open Edition Projects
ZachXBT, a Twitter crypto sleuth, revealed that two Twitter accounts, @CyrusPunk9623 and @Stevedoes100x, managed to get away with more than 80.3 ETH in the last month. The two promoted their accounts and gained traction posing as Crypto Punk and Azuki Whales.
During that time, they revealed that they created more than 13 open-edition projects:
The two accounts also hosted fake giveaways. Another Twitter account, Sean Bonner, suspected that the two might be the same person. He also said that he called the gifts of him and the two accounts immediately blocked him. Zach XBT responded that it seemed that way since the two accounts use similar wallets.
Bob Troia, co-founder of Awesome Labs LCC, also mentioned who caught them scamming a mint where the max supply increased from 999 to 1111 in the middle of the mint for a BTC Ordinal Apepunk.
Most of the responses to the Zach XBT revelation condemn the two accounts and praise the work of the Twitter detective in preventing further victims. Others called those who fell for the scam “pathetic” and “lazy,” saying the victims didn’t see the clear bill that screams, “I’ll take your money.”
As of this writing, @CyrusPunk9623’s Twitter account still exists and all posts are still active, but they haven’t been active since the exposure. On the other hand, @Stevedoes100x was removed and a quick search shows the account doesn’t exist.
NFT scams are becoming prevalent in the NFT industry. In January 2023 alone, Kevin Rose, the founder of PROOF Collective, was scammed out of over $1 million worth of NFTs. He fell victim to a phishing scam, and his Azuki Twitter account was also hacked, so his followers clicked on a hacker’s link, resulting in $800,000 worth of NFT loss.
