Banksy Fake NFT Sale on OpenSea

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Banksy

Pranksy received an anonymous Discord message about a new NFT on the Banksy website, and placed the winning bid. No sooner had he done that then the NFT page was taken down and he found out the whole thing had been an elaborate fake. A hacker had hacked the banksy website, listed their NFT on OpenSea, and then promoted it extensively until it sold.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

About Banksy

"With NFTs, artwork can be "tokenised" to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought and sold."

"In August 2021," "A link to an online auction for the NFT was posted on a now-deleted page of banksy.co.uk." "Banksy's official site had a new page called NFT which included a link to an auction site selling an NFT called Great Redistribution of the Climate Change Disaster."

"The auction ended early after the man offered 90% more than rival bidders." "He says he was first alerted to the auction by an anonymous person in his community on the social network Discord on Monday morning."

"[A] prominent NFT collector called Pranksy paid more than $336,000 for a fake Banksy NFT."

"So my bid of 100 ETH was accepted for the potential #Banksy first #NFT on @opensea. The link was removed from his website so it could have been a very elaborate hoax, my guess is that is what it will be, only time will tell!"

"Pranksy first learned about the artwork from a member of his Discord channel. The auction was also advertised on Banksy’s official page."

"About an hour after placing his offer, the seller of the NFT was accepted by the seller. But Banksy’s spokesperson told BBC that Banksy wasn’t involved in the creation of any NFT." Banksy's team told the BBC "any Banksy NFT auctions are not affiliated with the artist in any shape or form".

"Pranksy had been scammed." "The Banksy fan who got duped says he thought he was buying the world-famous graffiti artist's first ever NFT."

"I've just had a @BBC journalist confirm that the #NFT that was hosted on http://banksy.co.uk/nft.html was not a real banksy, hopefully I can get in touch with the team who represents him, if not it was fun entertainment for us all today."

Banksy's team did not respond to questions about how his site was compromised but said: "The artist Banksy has not created any NFT artworks."

"As it turned out, Banksy’s site was hacked and the fraudulent NFT auction was advertised, creating the perfect storm for a collector aptly named “Pranksy” to get scammed." "The man who is in his 30s and wanted to remain anonymous explained over Twitter direct messages that he suspects Banksy's site was hacked, and that he was the victim of an elaborate scam."

"He says the hacker returned all the money except for the transaction fee of around £5,000 on Monday evening." "Oddly enough, the hacker returned all the money to Pranksy except for the gas fees of roughly $6,700, only after Pranksy revealed who had shared the auction in the Discord and followed him on Twitter, likely spooking the scammer with fear of inevitable consequences."

"My ETH from the #Banksy #NFT purchase was just returned to me, ethical hacker proving a point?"

"The refund was totally unexpected, I think the press coverage of the hack plus the fact that I had found the hacker and followed him on Twitter may have pushed him into a refund."

"I feel very lucky when a lot of others in a similar situation with less reach would not have had the same outcome," he said.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

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• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - Banksy Fake NFT Sale on OpenSea

Date	Event	Description
August 31st, 2021 3:52:54 AM MDT	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Technical Details

This section includes specific detailed technical analysis of any security breaches which happened. What specific software vulnerabilities contributed to the problem and how were they exploited?

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost has been estimated at $336,000 USD.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

The total amount recovered has been estimated at $329,000 USD.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

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Individual Prevention Policies

No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.