Yuga Labs’ creation, the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club, is not just recognized for its “Otherside” but also for the soaring phishing scams. BAYC dropped its much-awaited “Otherside” metaverse, which created a high success in terms of sales and also chaos.
The Yuga Labs drop was a much-awaited land mint that dropped last Saturday. The sale was a massive success where the company managed to amass over $310 million in just a few hours of the mint. The chaos resulted in an Ethereum gas war where users had to pay colossal gas fees to mint the NFT.
Yuga Labs and scammers made a lump sum
Amidst all the hype of the “Otherside” metaverse, it would be dumb of the scammers not to take up this opportunity to steal some NFTs. The scammers utilized the hype and created phishing websites to steal millions.
The Bored Ape community has been the prime target of the attackers as the entire NFT realm is booming, and the demand for the Apes is soaring too.
The “Otherside” metaverse that managed to score over $310 million from the sales also provided the best opportunity for the scammers to deploy their attacks. The scammers stole over $5.2 million worth of NFTs from collectors. The numbers are still not precise, but it’s high.
Never-ending NFT scams
Blockchain security platform, PeckShieldAlert tweeted a batch of forged accounts impersonating the OthersideMeta page. Twitter suspended at least five accounts identified with the fake promotions.
The scammers impersonated the Otherside social channels asking collectors to connect their wallets for fake giveaways, airdrops, and gas refunds, allowing the scammers to loot their wallets.
Even though the sale was a huge success, the minters spent a whopping $165 million ETH fees to mint the NFT. Some minters even had to spend $7,000 for a single transaction as gas fees.
Many NFT collectors appear to have fallen for the scam sites advertising gas reimbursements and more rounds of Otherside NFT mints in the days after the mint.
“Wallets that completed KYC but did not mint will receive a full refund of their gas.” One of the fake websites stated that “registering for a refund would also instantly include you to the Wave 2 Otherside Lands Raffle List.” Noteworthy statements to uplift a disappointed minter to cheer him up, right?
Crypto sleuth Zachxbt highlighted another scammer who managed to loot $5.2 million worth of NFTs, including (5 BAYC, 12 MAYC, 36 Otherdeed & more).
The scammers tried their best to cash in through all the hype around the “Otherside” metaverse. BAYC community is not new to phishing scams. The team recently witnessed its social media handles getting hacked, which resulted in various collectors losing their NFTs.