Beeple Discord Account Hack

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The Fake NFT Mint

Renowned digital artist Beeple, known for his high-profile NFT sales, faced an incident where his official Discord group was compromised. The attackers used the compromised account to stage a fake NFT drop, causing users to lose an estimated 38 Ether. Despite the involvement of two-factor authentication, the compromised admin's account was impersonated to promote the fake NFT drop. Users who attempted to participate in the unauthorized sale lost funds, and the hacker's wallet reportedly cashed out some of the money. Beeple's official account, while not directly addressing the incident, emphasized that the artist would not hurriedly promote sales. An investigation is underway to understand the breach and address the situation.

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

About None

Beeple (also known as Mike Winkelmann) was a well known artist and NFT creator from South Carolina who has been working on digital art since May 1st, 2007, with his first debut into the NFT space in February 2021. He has created three of the top ten most expensive NFTs sold to date. One of those, his "first 5,000 days", where he created a new NFT photo for 5,000 days straight, sold for over $69 million, the most expensive NFT ever sold to a sole owner.

"@Verified It's Minting Season! 155 LIMITED EDITION mints have become available for 0.15 ETH each for our latest project! Can we sell out in 5 minutes? (Max mints per person = 20)"

"An administrative account for Beeple’s official Discord group was compromised overnight, resulting in a fake nonfungible token (NFT) drop that saw users lose an estimated 38 Ether."

"Popular digital artist Beeple whose artwork was sold as an NFT for a whopping $69 million is all set to launch his second auction on Nifty. However, right before the auction date, the official Discord channel of the artist has been compromised overnight. The hackers then posted a fake NFT auction in the artist’s name coinciding with the next auction."

"Discord member “NFT Simon” told Cointelegraph he had his MetaMask wallet set up and was ready to pounce just in case."

"“When the post came up on the Official Beeple Discord, from the verified Beeple Bot and the verified Administrator with a link to a Nifty Gateway website I didn’t blink twice. I headed over and proceeded to mint as much and as fast as I could,” he said."

"NFT Simon nabbed six Beeple NFTs — or so he thought — but was unable to view them on his Nifty account. Back on Discord, he was dismayed to find the fake admin was writing in all caps."

“I was greeted to a multiple explicit Gifs of naked men coming from multiple users. It was clearly a scam and someone had hacked Beeple’s Discord.”

"An admin from Beeple’s Discord named “Multi” confirmed to the group on Wednesday that their account had been compromised despite having two-factor authentication. The perpetrator went on to impersonate Multi and the Beeple Announcements Bot to promote a fake NFT drop from Beeple on Nifty Gateway."

"After an hour or so, the original admin regained control of their login, and the chat turned to outing the hacker’s wallets and reporting them to Binance. “Then we all watched them slowly but surely cash out our money, it was all too late,” he said."

"Etherscan shows the alleged hacker’s wallet only has $9,121.54 remaining and that 25 ETH was moved abruptly. Users report more ETH was lost, however."

"“I still don’t own a Beeple. I know Beeple stood up for the community once when we crashed Makers Place, who knows how or if he will right things this time. I’d certainly prefer six Beeples over my ETH back,” said NFT Simon.

Beeple’s official account did not address the incident directly but posted a pinned message reading: “To everyone new, please know I will never be like HEY QUICK BUY THIS!!!!”

In response to the lack of communication, one user wrote that instead of a pinned message, a “calming and understanding announcement would make things easier to accept.”"

"Beeple has begun an investigation into the attack as it seeks to understand how the breach happened."

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

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• 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 - Beeple Discord Account Hack

Date	Event	Description
November 10th, 2021 10:18:33 PM MST	CoinTelegraph Article	CoinTelegraph publishes an article with some details about the incident.
November 10th, 2021 11:33:19 PM MST	CoinGape Article	CoinGape reports with a lot of similar information.
November 11th, 2021 2:05:24 AM MST	Tokenhell Article	Tokenhell also takes their turn at reporting on the situation. "Beeple has begun an investigation into the attack as it seeks to understand how the breach happened."
May 22nd, 2022 9:46:00 PM MDT	CoinTelegraph Mention	CoinTelegraph again mentions the incident in relation to a separate account hack on Beeple's Twitter which also results in losses.
May 24th, 2022 2:34:17 AM MDT	WazirX Mention	The incident is mentioned in a WazirX article.

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 $176,000 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

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

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

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

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.