MASK TOKEN

DESCRIPTION OF EVENTS

"Then came the actively malicious $MASK scam, capitalising on the hype generated by the above examples, and speculation on whether MetaMask would release its own token." "[A] token was issued by “MaskDAO”, the website was registered yesterday, December 27th."

"Today, on Dec. 28, Ether holders started reporting a new "honeypot contact," i.e., a token that you can only buy but not sell. The scam impersonates MetaMask's governance token, Mask, which has not been issued yet."

"The person or persons who created these fakes almost deserves credit for being cunning enough to superimpose what looks like a real OpenSea verified blue check mark on the stolen Hashmasks logo inside the logo’s border (see below). They link to the real Hashmasks website and Discord and are betting people won’t notice the extra apostrophe after “Hasmasks.” Another tell is, this sham collection is on Polygon."

"The scammer was able to manipulate DEXTools into showing a blue tick verification and pop-up which displayed the token as legitimate."

"Hackers injected malicious code into the description of the token that the website executed, resulting in a much-anticipated blue "Verified" badge displayed next to WETH/MASK pair."

"Mr. @cobynft revealed that the sell option was locked after $1 million in liquidity was injected into MASK. Right now, the token is labeled as a "honeypot" by automatic analytic systems due to its code including the line that does not allow selling it."

"After users piled in, 462 ETH was pulled from the Uni v2 pool. The contract also included fees on transfer which were sent directly to this address." "127 ETH of which have since been sent on to another address, and then to Tornado Cash." "According to Etherscan, the actual number of victims of this scam could be closer to 400."

"User Jeremy shared a screenshot of the transaction history of an Ether holder who bought MASK for 22 ETH (nearly $ 88,000) and was unable to sell it afterwards."

"Really depressing. Dude tries to ape a coin 7 times upping ante each time. Fails each time. Gets in his entire net worth on the last go. Coin was a fake metamask token. Dextools exploit. Unsellable. What you're seeing here is a star going out."

"It seems that some traders are able to make a sale in the first few hours. But then it got worse and people started to realize they were being betrayed."

"As crypto enthusiast @cobynft explained, MASK token issuers used a trick to get verification badges for the popular DeFi app DexTool."

“Hackers added malicious code to the description of the token displayed by the website, resulting in the highly anticipated blue ‘Verified’ badge next to the WETH / MASK pair,” he said.

In anticipation of a new MASK token which was to be released by MetaMask, a scam token was created also called MASK. The token was structured so that the ability to sell it would stop working over time, through a modification to the smart contract. It is reported that 462 ETH was spent purchasing the tokens. Much of the proceeds/profits were taken out through TornadoCash, and there is no indication that any affected users will obtain a recovery of their lost funds.

HOW COULD THIS HAVE BEEN PREVENTED?

There are a multitude of tools which can be used to detect tokens that can't be sold. However, this may be a "cat and mouse" game with hackers finding clever ways to fool the detection mechanisms.

There are no reported cases of such tokens being listed on any exchange which is centralized or has individuals to currate their token list.

Check Our Framework For Safe Secure Exchange Platforms

Rekt - Airdrop Hunters II (Feb 8)
https://etherscan.io/address/0x241357313e802e16eeb9380f2b027224e90b56dd (Feb 16)
Almost 400 ETH holders defrauded by counterfeit MetaMask tokens - CoinCu News (Feb 16)
@lindyape Twitter (Feb 16)
FREE MetaMask Airdrop?! What is Mask DAO? - YouTube (Feb 16)
$MASK - MaskDAO (Feb 16)
$MASK - MaskDAO (Feb 16)
$MASK - MaskDAO (Feb 16)
$MASK - MaskDAO (Feb 16)
$MASK - MaskDAO (Feb 16)
https://dappradar.com/blog/sos-mask-and-gas-airdrops-cause-hype-and-controversy (Feb 16)
Scam Alert: No, Metamask Didn't Issue Token (Feb 16)
@Mask_Dao Twitter (Feb 16)
@sterlingcrispin Twitter (Feb 16)
https://inf.news/en/tech/9244c3fa915f2a53745f45cd12282716.html (Feb 16)

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