Twitter users claiming to be associated with the Azuki NFT Project are stealing NFTs and scamming people. To perpetrate their scheme, the scammers have taken control of the accounts verified users, which includes journalists.
Twitter users, beware! If you are tagged in a thread about an incredible opportunity for free Azuki NFTs click the link to connect your Ethereum account. This is likely a scam and not an official initiative by the creators of Azuki.
Scammers have taken over verified Twitter accounts, including journalists, and changed the profile text and images to make it appear that the account belonged to one of the co-creators for the popular Azuki project. (The real founders of Chiru Labs use pseudonyms).
The scammer then tweets a link promising a secret airdrop of Beanz, an NFT drop that was only given to Azuki NFT holders. Tweet suggests that NFT collectors should click the link “claim a Bean”, and then they will be prompted to connect an Ethereum account as part of the fraud scheme.
What appears to be happening is that NFTs are being stolen from the wallets of people who have connected a wallet to this site. They do not receive any Beanz NFTs or anything else in return.
At least two instances were reported in which the journalist had their account compromised by phishing email. This email was purportedly sent by Twitter’s support staff. Unnamed journalist spoke to Decrypt, claiming that their account had sent more than 6,000 tweets and nearly all of them were tagged with potential victims.
Similar to , the Azuki-themed scam uses the same approach as . It is centered around ApeCoin (APE), the Ethereum token that was created for the budding HTML3 ecosystem. This project is being built around Yuga Labs Bored Ape yacht Club NFT.
Collectors who interacted via a Twitter scam claimed that more than $1,000,000 worth of NFTs had been stolen. The scam promised to send a bounty of ApeCoin tokens and a bounty to collectors. The scammers also stole NFTs from the wallets of those who connected them, including collectibles from Mutant Ape Yacht club and Bored Ape.
Similar to the Azuki scam scam, ApeCoin scammers stole the Twitter accounts verified users including journalists and claimed they were founders of Yuga Labs or the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Curiously, the ApeCoin scam victims claimed they didn’t link their wallet to the listed website but still claimed their NFTs had been stolen.
The scammers were able to convince NFT collectors to cooperate with their scheme by using stolen verified Twitter accounts. Some people have replied to the tweets asking why Twitter would verify a fraudster. But it’s actually the reverse: A scammer had taken a verified account to make the appearance that they were reputable.
It should be clear in both cases that the true creators of Azuki NFT and Bored Ape Yacht Club scams are not to be believed. ApeCoin was only dropped to existing Bored Ape holders. Beans were only airdropped to Azuki NFT owners. These are the exclusive benefits that owners of valuable NFT collectibles enjoy.
An NFT is a deed to ownership of a unique digital item. The wider market generated $25B in trading volume in 2021, and more than $12B in the first quarter this year. NFT uses include avatars (such as Azuki), interactive video games, sports collectibles, and many other items.
It is not clear how much the Azuki scam has caused. Decrypt talked to a journalist who said that after they had recovered their Twitter account, many direct messages were sent from scammers asking for their stolen NFTs back. The journalist did not have the DMs to share Decrypt.
Emily Buder (head of video at Quanta Magazine), was one of the most recent victims of the scam. Her account was apparently taken over today. Her profile, which was not her real name, listed her as co-creator of Azuki and former artist for Overwatch.
Buder’s account was being controlled at the time. The scammer then began to tweet out and tag thousands, if not thousands of people in a series of tweets. Although the fraudulent Azuki imagery and branding have been removed from the account since then, the tweets are still visible as of writing.
Decrypt contacted Buder to get more information about the attack, but did not receive a reply. Decrypt reached out to Twitter to comment on the Azuki-themed NFT fraud and other NFT-related scams. Twitter representatives confirmed that they are aware of these scams and are actively looking for a solution.
According to CryptoSlam, Azuki has been one of the most successful new NFT projects launched so far in 2022. It generated $563 million of secondary market trading volume from its January launch. Azuki’s single NFT was sold for a record $1.42million. Since last week’s airdrop, the trading volume for Beanz NFTs has already reached $60 million.
