Attackers actively use artificially created hype on social networks to popularize scam NFT projects. In 2022, this allowed them to steal more than $200 million in crypto.
The Little Shapes NFT project, which has recently attracted plenty of attention from the media and the cryptocurrency community, was actually a “social experiment.” The project team revealed that they were part of BALLZNFT’s research that aimed to expose large-scale fraud on Twitter.
The BALLZNFT team, with the help of Little Shapes, exposed a scam scheme through which attackers were able to steal about $200 million from at least 274 NFT projects. The scheme involved using bots to promote scam projects. BALLZNFT proved that viral tweets generated by a botnet allowed scammers to create artificial hype around their NFT projects to attract real investors.
Such an example was the NFT project Little Shapes, which became quickly popular precisely due to a series of scandalous tweets about its founder’s coma and his allegedly lost investment in FTX, a bankrupt crypto exchange. All of these incidents were deliberately fictional and even a bit absurd, but that didn’t stop them from attracting community attention and causing a stir around the NFT project.
The study showed that it’s quite cheap for scammers to use the botnet on Twitter. For example, it costs about $100 for 1,000 likes, retweets, and replies. And after the hype they created, scammers behind the NFT project earn an average of ~$3 million.
Recall that social media is the most vulnerable area of Web 3.0. Scammers stole over $400 million in 2021 via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms.
