There's been another case of the old bait and switcheroo, guys, this time on the Solana network.
According to reports, a scammer, operating under the name, Iconics, sold more than 2,000 NFTs for an approximate value of $138,000. The guy promised beautiful, detailed 3D art, got himself a nice bag, and then made off with the dough. Let's get into it.
An Iconic Scheme
Iconics was reportedly the project of an unknown 17 year old digital artist who promised to deliver 3D art pieces as NFTs.
Look at that! Great work, right? I mean, I can hardly draw a stick man, so if I were an art collector which, thankfully in this case, I'm not, anybody creating this would be genius. So of course, when the 3D renders of the figurines from the chest up were presented on its Discord channel, people were sold by the "unique artwork"!
A lot of collectors were wowed, including prominent figures in the Solana community who helped to promote the project.
I mean, these people just went allllll out!
And so, by the time the artist or team of scammers, dang if I know, launched a pre-sale, 2,000 NFTs up for grabs at a price of 0.5 SOL each, purveyors thought they saw a steal and flocked to the site. The NFTs sold out almost as soon as they were minted. 1,000 SOL valued at $138,000, just like that.
And here's the kicker.
Investors did not discover the NFTs' contents until after the sale.
The Rug Pull
At the end of the pre-sale, minters expecting an NFT of the 3D art they purchased were stunned to realize that they were duped, as instead of the 3D bust, they instead received an NFT of random emojis.
The Iconics Discord chat was then disabled and its Twitter account deleted. No shocker there.
Hindsight is 20/20
As detectives, we are excellent at identifying warning signs we should have seen but didn't see until too late. And so, as the community went through a lessons learned exercise, some took to Twitter to point out the tell tale red flags no one looked out for in the mad stampede to snap up the NFTs.
We are Community
The Solana NFT community has since banded together with a number of projects returning SOL, offering airdrops and minting discounts and swaps for those affected.
What's Next?
Listen guys, I have so many thoughts about the damage bad actors can do to the growth of a community, and so I was really pleased to see the SOL community rallying together to counteract the impact of the Iconics con artist or team.
But this occurrence only further drives home the point that care and research is critically important to any decision taken that involves the transfer of funds, crypto or otherwise. Now, this is just my view, but I don't think it's enough to rush to scoop up an item because an influencer says it's a good deal. We have to look out for warning signs before we green light transactions.
Of course, even then, the risks abound, however, due diligence, perhaps, can serve to reduce the impact of some of these.
That said, I'm also wishing that more could be done to prevent bad actors from making off with investors' funds.
Because, at the end of the day, conners will con if they can. And it's gonna be pretty hard for those of us who work really hard to gather together our coins, to trust in a project, invest in that project, and then have some schemer scurry off with our crypto. Again, I'm just saying.
And if that happens, I'd hate to be told that I should have done my research and that there's nothing else to be done. I'd want to know what is being done to capture the bad actor and stop him, her, them, whomsoever from repeating that act under another profile on the same or other platforms.
Okay, guys, that's my view. But what do you think? I'd love to get your take on this.
For the moment, I'm off, following the story of a French bank applying for bonds on Dai, but I want to know, what do you think can be done to discourage crypto scammers from copping coins and making off?
Let me know in the comments below.
And until the next one, guys, please be safe!
