More than $100 million worth of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has been stolen over the past year, according to a report by Elliptic. The report published on Wednesday titled “NFTs and Financial Crime” looked at the crypto activity between July 2021 and July 2022.
Cybercriminals stole over $100M in NFTs
The report by Elliptic showed that more than $100 million worth of NFTs had been stolen over the past year. Besides the stolen NFTs, more than $8 million in illegal funds has been laundered using NFTs since 2017.
The Elliptic report further said that the cybercriminals had made an average of $300,000 per scam because of these illicit dealings. The report also adds that $24 million worth of NFTs were stolen through these scams in May 2022 alone. July marked the highest month where a record 4600 NFTs were stolen.
Elliptic also said that the number of NFTs stolen was higher because the theft was not publicized. The firm said that the unreported thefts were mainly NFTs with lower prices than the others.
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The report also said that 23% of all NFTs stolen in 2022 were caused by hacks on popular social media platforms used by the crypto community, such as Discord. The hacks were also a result of phishing messages sent to the members of different Discord groups.
The other attack methods used by the hackers include phishing emails and malicious websites that have been created to trick the user into that they were original websites.
Top NFT collections are the most targeted
The firm added that the most valuable NFT ever stolen was CryptoPunk #4324, where the thieves managed to walk away with $490,000 in November last year.
The largest theft in the NFT sector resulted in the loss of 16 “blue chip” NFTs valued at $2.1 million in December last year. The report also added that most of the stolen NFTs included collections from Bored Apes, Azuki, Mutant Apes, CloneX, and Otherside. These five collections comprise over two-thirds of the NFTs stolen since July 2021.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs were the most sought after by hackers. The theft of the BAYC NFTs resulted in a loss of $43.6 million. In June, Seth Green, a star in Family Guy, paid $300,000 to recover his stolen BAYC NFT after being the victim of a phishing campaign.
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