Louis Vuitton's NFT with Beeple was released in an unsuspected manner through a phishing scam.
Numerous Louis Vuitton and Beeple fans were caught in the scam yesterday, May 22, on the hacked official Twitter account of Beeple.
One of NFTs most prominent artists, Mike Winkelmann, popularly known as Beeple in the industry, got his account breached, leading to the draining of thousands of dollars from the victims.
Louis Vuitton NFT Phishing Scam Through Beeple
The Louis Vuitton NFTs were made in collaboration with Beeple. On Sunday, Beeple posted a link on his official verified Twitter account that will supposedly lead buyers to the exclusive Louis Vuitton NFTs.
Beeple's tweets at the time contained a link to a raffle for a Louis Vuitton NFT collaboration. As reported by Decrypt, Harry Denley, a security analyst at MetaMask, alerted users that the tweets were in fact a phishing scam that would steal cryptocurrency from users' wallets if they clicked on the link.
The security analyst immediately posted on his Twitter account, informing a vast audience of the NFT phishing scam.
The malicious actors continued to post phishing links from Beeple's Twitter account which led to fake Beeple collections. These links promised unsuspecting users that they would receive a free mint in exchange for unique NFTs if they purchased the fake collections.
The phishing links were up on Beeple's Twitter for approximately five hours. Denley also stated that the first link of the NFT phishing scam drained 36 ETH, or roughly $79,000, from its victims. The second link posted by the threat actors has collectively drained out an amount of $366,000.
The second link came from highly valued NFT collections such as the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, VeeFriends, and Otherdeeds, amongst others. Beeple hacked $438,000 from both links of the NFT phishing scam. Beeple, Mike Winkelmann, is one of the most well-known in digital art and the NFT scene.
He was the first artist to sell art for millions of dollars during the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency and NFT.Beeple successfully sold one of the most expensive NFTs to date, with his "Everydays: the First 5000 Days" at $69.3 million and "HUMAN ONE" at $28.9 million.
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Beeple Collaboration with Louis Vuitton NFT
After a few hours of leaving a phishing link on his official Twitter account, Beeple was able to recover and take down the link. Beeple then tweeted, stating that the incident was a fun way to wake up. The artist also expressed gratitude to Gary Vaynerchuck's team for the help. Beeple added, "Stay safe out there," reminding its users to be vigilant with scams.
ugh we’ll that was fun way to wake up. 😫
— beeple (@beeple) May 22, 2022
Twitter was hacked but we have control now. Huge thanks to @garyvee ‘a team for quick help!!!! 🙏🙏🙏
The malicious actors were probably trying to make a profit off of a real collaboration that had taken place not long ago between Beeple and Louis Vuitton.
According to Cointelegraph, at the beginning of the month of May, Beeple designed thirty NFTs for the mobile game titled Louis: The Game, which was embedded as rewards for the game's players.
The luxury fashion brand released the mobile game in August of 2021.
The game transports players into a world where they can run around and collect postcards educating them on the 200-year history of the brand while also being able to dress up their own brand-inspired avatar, named Vivienne.
The NFTs were created through a partnership between Beeple's startup, Wenew Labs, and Louis Vuitton's sister company, Possible. They were minted using Ethereum from the Louis Vuitton company wallet.
