Unidentified artist sells fake NFTs for $144,000 and vanishes

A purported 17-year-old digital artist conducted a pre-sale of fake non-fungible tokens (NFTs) issued on the Solana blockchain and disappeared with users’ funds. The Block reports.

As part of a collection called Iconics, he promised to realise 8000 NFTs, aimed at “quality art”. The works consisted of 3D images of busts of various characters. Fourteen digital pieces were posted on Discord as examples.

He offered 2,000 images at a price of 0.5 SOL (totaling around $144 000 at the current rate) for the presale. After it began, users quickly snapped up the NFTs, but instead of the expected digital artworks they received random emoji collections.

my most rare iconics, hear alien floor is gonna 🚀 pic.twitter.com/S9KszyNssK

— Daniel Rollingher (@DBRolling) September 30, 2021

Subsequently, the project’s Discord channel was taken offline, and the Iconics Twitter account was deleted.

According to data from the blockchain explorer, funds obtained from the sale have already been moved across several addresses.

«Damn, Iconics just bailed. He did a presale of 2,000 NFTs at 0.5 SOL and walked away with 1,000 SOL, I think. Sorry to everyone who lost [funds] in this. I minted a bunch too, as the works looked good. Lesson learned», wrote on Twitter a popular Solana NFT collector known by the alias Sol Big Brain.

Damn.. @IconicsSol just RUGGED. Did a presale for 2K at .5 and made off with I think 1000 SOL.

FUCK YOU SCAMMERS!!

Sorry to anybody who took the L here. I minted a bunch also as art looked good. Lesson Learned.

Onwards, with that out of the way lets focus on the GOOD STUFF!

— S◎L Big Brain (@SOLBigBrain) September 30, 2021

Victims of the scam set up their own Discord channel to discuss what happened and attempt to carry on with the project.

Sol Big Brain urged other NFT issuers in the Solana community to dedicate part of their releases to aid the victims. He suggested this would be “not bad PR” for the collections.

Several projects responded to his call, offering their tokens in exchange for the fake ones.

Rug Pullers Get Fucked

Waifu DAO will be airdropping upto 1,000 Waifu NFTs to victims of the @iconicssol Rug Pull

If you got rugged, please post your Phantom Wallet address below, we’ll check your transaction history to verify and airdrop everyone eligible within 24 hours 😇 https://t.co/xfOFtPXk92

— Waifu DAO Solana — Mint Now Live 💎 (@WaifuDAOSolana) September 30, 2021

«Waifu DAO will conduct an airdrop of up to 1000 NFTs for victims of the Iconics scam», said the team of one of them.

Earlier, as a result of a phishing attack on users of the Aurory NFT project on Solana stole assets worth more than a million dollars.

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