Another day, another crypto scam. This time, however, the targets were the $5 billion-valued Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and holders of its NFT apes. On Monday, the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s official Twitter account announced that the company’s Instagram account was hacked.
“There is no mint going on today,” tweeted the BAYC account. “It looks like BAYC Instagram was hacked. Do not mint anything, click links, or link your wallet to anything.”
But the warning came too late. Whoever hacked the BAYC Instagram rapidly took advantage of it. In an Instagram post, BAYC pointed Bored Ape investors to a page where they could ostensibly connect their crypto wallet and claim an unique freebie. That link drained their ape-NFT-holding wallets. According to creator Molly White of Web3 Is Going Great, 44 people fell for the scam, stealing 133 NFTs.
The wall hacker’s wallet address contained 4 Bored Apes, 7 Mutant Apes, and 3 Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs, according to blockchain investigator @zachxbt. Based on prior aftermarket sales, these stolen NFTs are valued roughly $3 million. The perpetrator is also selling stolen non-fungible tokens on the NFT marketplace. Molly White claims that 23 of the stolen NFTs had been sold for roughly $2.4 million.
The BAYC Instagram account was hijacked. In a statement to Vice, BAYC owner Yuga Labs said that the Instagram account had two-factor authentication set, which should have made unauthorized access difficult.