Twitter crypto scammers are now targeting Moonbirds NFTs, a project by entrepreneurs Kevin Rose and Ryan Carson. It’s a collection of 10,000 pixelated owls that have raked millions in sales within days.
Scammers trying to get some money off successful NFT projects is a recurring theme now.
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Last month, they were successful in stealing NFTs worth more than $500,000 from Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) owners.
After opening up NFT minting on Saturday, the project has clocked over $290 million in sales across Opensea and Looksrare.
To take advantage of this hype, scammers have started taking over numerous verified accounts on Twitter, and tweeting out malicious links that might lead people to transfer their cryptocurrencies or NFTs in the hopes of scoring a Moonbird.
We have observed at least 10 hacked Twitter accounts across countries ranging from athletes to politicians posting scammy links that lead you to a fake Moonbirds website.
These names include Levi Sanders (son of Senator Bernie Sanders), New Zealand cricketer Martin Guptil, former RuPaul’s Drag Race stars Dahlia Sin, Pangina Heals, and Lady Camden, golfer Sofie Powell, Indian politicians Malti Maheshwari and Bikha Joshi, and former member of the Chamber of Deputies of Argentina, Horacio Pietragalla Corti. The list goes on.
These accounts, with thousands of followers, are tagging hundreds of Twitter users to try and siphon off some money before the handles are returned to the rightful owner.
Moonbirds is gaining tremendous popularity amongst NFT collectors, as it has become the top project for the last 30 days period, according to analytics site Cyrptoslam.
Given the high-profile names attached to it, the Moonbirds project might be the target of a lot of scams in the future. As noted by crypto scam watcher account zachxbt, the project was the target of a Sybil attack at launch.
That means one person created a ton of wallets to be on the allowlist that gets to mint NFTs. This person was successful in winning 50 slots, and could end up with thousands of dollars by selling Moonbirds on a secondary market.
Essentially, the project failed to put in enough filters to disallow such bidding.
Looks like someone created 400+ accounts to Sybil Attack the @moonbirds_xyz raffle:https://t.co/HeWT5d8DCP
They’ve already sold the majority it looks like. Just at a quick glance they won 20+
One example:https://t.co/UTqYWRkgsG pic.twitter.com/szgJGT5JXO
— zachxbt (@zachxbt) April 16, 2022
When it comes to Twitter spam, Moobirds co-founder Justin Mezzell addressed this by saying that the situation is bad, and the company’s trying to do everything to keep it under control.
Oh the spam is terrible! We’re doing everything we can to contain it. Lots of bad actors doing their play. This wasn’t project criticism (which is of course valid) so much as gatekeeping which projects deserve recognition or success.
— Justin Mezzell (?,?) (@JustinMezzell) April 19, 2022
Yo! These are scammers who purchase verified accounts, pretend to be @moonbirds_xyz, and try to get folks to connect their wallet and siphon funds. It's the worst. Just block / report if you're seeing it!
— Justin Mezzell (?,?) (@JustinMezzell) April 18, 2022
This issue is not limited to one project. As The Block noted, another popular NFT project called Azuki has also been targeted using the same playbook.
We’ve asked Twitter if it’s taking any action against scammers, and we’ll update the story if we hear back.
Earlier this month, Elon Musk, who’s trying to buy the social network, called crypto spam bots the “single most annoying problem” on the platform. Wonder if he has any suggestions to fight this issue.
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