Pixel Penguins, an NFT undertaking allegedly created by an artist battling most cancers, has been uncovered as a rip-off utilizing stolen artwork.
How Pixel Penguins NFTs grew to become in style
On Might 30, crypto influencer Andrew Wang wrote a thread on Twitter detailing how self-proclaimed pixel artist Hopeexist1 battled eye most cancers and created digital artwork for the neighborhood.
Wang pressured their neighborhood to contribute to the artist’s hospital payments by buying her artwork. He added:
“I hear quite a bit about how web3 is not what it was and I am usually responsible of complaining greater than something. The reality is that web3 is what we wish it to be, and to start with, the artists right here haven’t stopped creating. We do not have to decide on them, however we will not faux they do not exist.”
Matter, together with a number of others, coming quickly gathered sympathy and the eye of the broader neighborhood that donated to the trigger.
This elevated publicity helped the gathering shortly promote out and turn out to be a development at OpenSea. Nevertheless, additional investigation by the neighborhood quickly revealed that the NFTs have been stolen artwork and that the individual didn’t have most cancers.
The fraudster earned over 100 thousand {dollars}
On Twitter since Might 31 threadblockchain researcher ZachXBT stated the Pixel Penguin contract had 61,686 ETH value over $117,000.
ZachXBT additional revealed that the scammer moved 63.5 ETH obtained from the rip-off to 2 new recipients on the OKX crypto alternate.
In the meantime, the fraudster has since deactivated his Twitter account, and the underside value of the gathering has dropped 86% to 0.004 ETH from a peak of 0.075 ETH on OpenSea. In keeping with knowledge from the NFT market, Pixel Penguins recorded 6582 gross sales and its quantity was 216 ETH.
As well as, Wang he apologized for sharing the gathering, saying he believed it was actual.
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