NFT Artist Beeple’s Twitter Account Hacked, $438k Lost in Phishing Scam

Digital artist and NFT creator Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, has been targeted in a serial phishing expedition that netted scammers a total of US$438,000.

Hackers Railroad Louis Vuitton Raffle

In a series of tweets over the weekend, purportedly from Beeple, links posted to a fake Louis Vuitton NFT raffle were made to capitalise on a recent real collaboration between Beeple and the luxury fashion brand.

Earlier this month, Beeple designed 30 NFTs for LV’s ‘Louis The Game’ mobile game, embedded as rewards to players. Scammers posted phishing links from Beeple’s Twitter account to fake Beeple collections that seduced unsuspecting users with the promise of a free mint for unique NFTs.

The phishing links were up on Beeple’s Twitter for several hours, with the first netting the scammers 36 ETH, or roughly US$73,000 at the time. The second link snared US$365,000 worth of ETH and NFTs, bumping the total value of the scam to about US$438,000.

Beeple later tweeted that he had regained control of his account and reminded his followers that “anything too good to be true IS A F*CKING SCAM”:

Beeple Makes Himself a Scam Magnet

Having created three of the top 10 most expensive NFTs released to date, including one that sold for US$69 million, Beeple has made himself a prime target for hacks. Last November, his installation artwork Human One, paired with an NFT, sold for almost US$29 million at auction. That same month, an admin account on the artist’s Discord channel was hacked, with users losing 38 ETH to a fake NFT drop remarkably similar to the latest exploit.

Earlier this month, Beeple made the news for an entirely different reason, partnering with pop icon Madonna on an explicit NFT collection that possibly raised more eyebrows than it did money.