On Monday, the non-fungible-token (NFT) collection of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) was hacked on Instagram. Users were sent a phishing link that was designed to steal NFTs. Three million dollars worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from the victims, according to Gizmodo.
According to a BAYC spokesperson, “rough estimated losses due to the scam are 4 Bored Apes, 6 Mutant Apes, and 3 BAKC [Bored Ape Kennel Club], as well as assorted other NFTs, estimated at a total value of $3 million.”
After gaining access to the Instagram account, the hacker created a fake airdrop link for the company’s upcoming Otherside metaverse project, which is set to launch later this week. The primary goal of a crypto airdrop is to raise awareness for new projects or services. The idea is to send tokens or NFTs to thousands of crypto addresses in the hopes that more people will become interested in the project and promote it. Users must connect their crypto wallet where their NFTs are stored in order to receive an airdrop.
When users did so, however, the scam site stole their digital assets and transferred them to the hacker’s wallet. “This morning, the official BAYC Instagram account was hacked,” BAYC said in a tweet. Users were prompted to sign a safe transfer from’ transaction after clicking on a fraudulent link to a copycat of the BAYC website with a fake Airdrop. “As a result, their assets were transferred to the scammer’s wallet.”
The BAYC team removed the fake links from the compromised Instagram account after discovering the hack. “We will also never announce mints on the BAYC or Otherside Instagram accounts first, ever. Only obtain information from our official Twitter accounts,” BAYC noted in a tweet.
It’s unclear how the hacker gained access to the BAYC Instagram account at this time. According to the ape avatar platform, the “hack occurred even when two-factor-authentication was enabled on the account,” as one of Yuga Labs’ founders, Gargamel, tweeted. “On Yuga’s end, the security practices surrounding the IG account were tight. “I’m never going to post anything important on Instagram again.”
The blockchain investigator @zachxbt on Twitter dug into the wall hacker’s wallet address and discovered 4 Bored Apes, 7 Mutant Apes, and 3 Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs among the highly valuable NFTs stolen. Celebrities such as basketball legend Steph Curry, musician Post Malone, and even American TV host Jimmy Fallon own BAYC NFT.
Scams involving Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs have become quite common. Last month, a bored ape holder known as’s27′ lost $567k worth of bubble gum ape and matching mutants after swapping NFTs at an exchange known as “Swap. Kiwi.” Direct NFT swaps between collectors are possible on this platform, with lower transaction fees.
Yuga Labs, the company behind the popular ape avatar collection, has announced its entry into the metaverse. Otherside is the name of this company’s metaverse project, which aims to connect its massively multiplayer role-playing game to the larger NFT universe.
