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The Almighty Buck

Twitch Co-Founder Gets Discord Hacked, $150,000 Stolen From Users In NFT Scam (kotaku.com) 22

Posted by BeauHD from the scammers-gonna-scam dept.
Luke Plunkett writes via Kotaku: Justin Kan, a co-founder of Twitch and the dude Justin.TV was named for, last week decided to launch a site called Fractal. It was to be a 'marketplace' where in-game items could be bought and sold as NFTs. Later, in Fractal's Discord server, a link appeared advertising a drop of 3,333 NFTs. You may have guessed what happened next. As Twitch reporter Zach Bussey has detailed, the message, which appeared legit since it was coming from inside the house, had actually been posted by someone gaining access to Fractal's Discord bot, pointing towards 'Fractai', not Fractal. The scammers managed to "sell" 3,294 NFTs before the plug was pulled. There were of course no actual NFTs being sold at all, just money being straight up stolen -- over $150,000 -- though you'd be forgiven for wondering what the difference is.

In response, the Fractal team issued a statement acknowledging the breach, along with a promise they are "going to make this right." [...] ractal say they are "planning to fully compensate these 373 victims," before adding the extraordinary warning, "We must use our best judgement as there's no 'undo button' in crypto," making the entire post read like a textbook example of showcasing why this is such a shitty space. Meanwhile, Kan issued a short video statement of his own, alongside warnings that this Discord scam had been perpetrated on other NFT communities as well.
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Twitch Co-Founder Gets Discord Hacked, $150,000 Stolen From Users In NFT Scam More

Twitch Co-Founder Gets Discord Hacked, $150,000 Stolen From Users In NFT Scam

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  • Good news (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Frank Burly ( 4247955 ) on Wednesday December 22, 2021 @08:54PM (#62107785)
    Couldn't Justin Kan just create a bunch of NFTs for almost free, and give them to this credulous fanbase? If they want nothing, just give them the nothing they paid for!

  • Taking a crash course in economics (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lisandro ( 799651 ) on Wednesday December 22, 2021 @08:58PM (#62107807)

    "We must use our best judgement as there's no 'undo button' in crypto." Yeah, no shit.

    The non-reversibility of blockchain transactions plus the downright shitty code most of these sites uses is an explosive mixture. It's no accident we have a couple of exchange hack stories every week now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Blockchain transactions can be reversed, if you have enough influence. It's happened a few times before, usually after someone finds a flaw in the code and exploits it. Then enough of the users of the blockchain agree to roll it back and undo the theft.

      So it's more accurate to say that most people getting scammed can't do much to recover their money, only the big influential players can. Pretty much just like modern banking.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Blockchain transactions can be reversed, if you have enough influence. It's happened a few times before, usually after someone finds a flaw in the code and exploits it. Then enough of the users of the blockchain agree to roll it back and undo the theft.

        So it's more accurate to say that most people getting scammed can't do much to recover their money, only the big influential players can. Pretty much just like modern banking.

        Except that's brute force reversing - you're basically rewinding the ledger to a pre

  • I hear Butters' voice (Score:3)

    by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Wednesday December 22, 2021 @09:01PM (#62107815)

    "Yeah, I'm going to click on ... Decline" [cc.com]

    Just say no to NFTs

  • "If something doesn't feel right in crypto, please don't proceed..."

    So... yeah.

  • and it's cute that you say $150,000 as if "800 sol" is really equivalent to that.
  • They bought a nothing of a nothing? It was a fake nothing instead of a real nothing.

    An NFT is a code that supposedly represents a share of something. So, maybe you buy a share of a pizzaI am eating. You get no pizza, but you own 100% of a number which represents an eight of my pizza, but you have no right to the pizza itself... only the number. I can eat the pizza and shit it out, but you don't own a number representing the shit made from the eighth of the pizza which no longer exists... you own a number wh

  • A question for those in the know. Probably a dumb question.
    I googled, but signal to noise was frustrating.

    As in the subject above, how many bytes does it take to represent an NFT token?
    Or is it a question like how many fish does it take to sing a taxi?

  • Roll up, Roll up, Web 3.0 this way! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Thursday December 23, 2021 @02:24AM (#62108465)

    "I just don't get it", cries about 99% of the internet.

    Well, let me explain, it's all down to a base human emotion, one of the most powerful - Greed.

    The idiots buying NFTs (or in this case, just giving their money away - and there is a slight difference), clearly aren't doing it for any other reason than speculation.
    Well, duh, fairly obvious - yet this is exactly WHY a certain demographic falls for NFTs and the many scams surrounding them.

    The actual setup selling the "real" NFTs, escapes being called a scam (under current lack of regulations), because they are deemed collectibles - there's no laws (under current lack of regulations) being broken here.

    The problem is, most of them have all the hallmarks of a scam. The moment you part with your money, in the DeFi space, it has gone - you really have no idea exactly WHERE it has gone, just to an address in a ledger, that has absolutely no identity attached to it.
    You may as well have met some faceless stranger in a crowded city centre and handed over your money, in return for something that has the promise of value - and all you get in return, is an entry in your own ledger. That stranger vanishes.

    There's no recourse, nobody to talk to if the transaction is wrong, no reversing of the transaction, no protections at all.
    There is nobody in charge, nobody regulating the exchange.
    "But that's fine, the ledger is immutable!" - yep, the ledger doesn't give a shit. The ultimate faceless wall of "trust".
    About as safe as it is distributed - the more exact copies, the more "secure", the less copies - the more centralised - the less "secure".

    Imagine spinning this concept out into, say, providing hosting services using the blockchain.
    In this brave new world of Decentralised apps, who actually holds the keys?
    Who is accountable, if your application, hosted via smart contracts, across numerous "nodes" - copies of the blockchain - suddenly falls over?
    Who do you call? What is your guarantee? Who owns the "hosting space"? Where, actually, is your data?

    If this "space" in which applications are deployed, is driven by liquidity providers, who are completely anonymous (to all intents and purposes), suffers from a sudden liquidity drain - a rug pull, or 50% of the "nodes" decide to pull the plug in favour of the next best ROI - who do you call?

    Right now, this insane market is nowhere near that goal, as it is currently incapable of realistically scaling enough to provide the computing power required - and we can only hope it never gains traction.

    It's time for regulation, as "Web 3.0", right now, seems to be nothing other than a place to get scammed or to scam.

    The idea of it being "decentralised" to the point where nobody calls the shots - is a fake construct.
    Someone ALWAYS has to call the shots if they are providing a service, therefore, it becomes centralised.

    So, you take your services away from that "bad guy", e.g. AWS - that "nasty centralised entity" ... and hand them over to... well, who exactly?
    That startup, with virtually no experience of running such a service? That startup, who really has no control over their "decentralised" platform, because the bulk of the providers of processing power, don't actually give a shit about anything other than ROI?

    It's a mess.

  • This will be a thing very soon. Either the thieves or the victims create a NFT of the theft and sell for profit.

  • Anyone that hasn't realized that crypto and NFTs are the emperor's new clothes, they deserve what happens and should go invest in web3.

  • "We must use our best judgement as there's no 'undo button' in crypto,"

    Anyone who has witnessed the last 2 years, let alone the last nth, knows that almost no one has "best judgement".

    Even the fauxtistic we-are-better-than-the-rest-of-humanity-because-we-are-tech-nerds Slashdot crowd shows their judgement is complete bullshit. Literally buying into conspiracy theories and Intelligent Design arguments.

  • Twitch Co-Founder Gets Discord Hacked (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday December 23, 2021 @06:14AM (#62108761)

    I bet that will lead to further discord.

  • ...is proof enough that they didn't work hard for the money spent. The money flows free from such hands and is, therefore, easily swindled. On the other hand, the defrauded buyers got just about what they thought they would get and have just about the same to show for the transaction, so there's that.

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