Hackers Breach Jason Falovitch’s Wallet and Steal NFTs, ETH Worth $150K
When Falovitch proceeded to report the matter to the police, he found his car was also broken into, he said in a tweet.
Controversial crypto entrepreneur Jason Falovitch on Sunday reported that hackers breached his crypto wallet on OpenSea and stole four NFTs and six ETH.
The value of the stolen assets is estimated to be in the range of $150,000, media reports said.
In a similar incident, earlier this month, famous American actor and comedian Bill Muray became a victim of hackers and lost 119.2 ETH worth $185,000 that he had just finished raising through his NFT action for a charity.
Asking to fix responsibility on the wallet service provider, a user sued OpenSea for $1 million after he lost his Bored Ape NFT in a phishing attack. The plaintiff claimed that OpenSea must accept some responsibility for the heist.
Falovitch’s Loss
The four NFTs that hackers illegally transferred out of his wallet included a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT and a Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) NFT, and two Doodles. Both Mutant and Bored Ape NFTs were sold for 15.99 ETH and 82.69 ETH, equivalent to $20,700 and $107,000, respectively.
The six ETH at the current market price was worth $7,770. Taking the Doodle floor price into consideration, the hackers seem to have made a profit of at least $150,000.
However, for Falovitch, the loss was at least twice as bigger as he had spent $377,000 to buy the four NFTs as per the ETH prices at the time of their purchase.
“I got hackled last night on Opensea. Apes, doodles, eth. It’s not pretty,” Falovitch tweeted on September 25, requesting that nobody should buy them or anything from his wallet.
In a few follow-up tweets, Falovitch narrated a chain of events that sounded curious, if not mysterious. He claimed that his loss in the hack was to the tune of $1 million, and when he came out to go to the police station to report the matter, he found his car was broken into. And just before entering the police station, he found some inexplicable writings on the steps.
Little Sympathy for Falovitch
It was certainly a bad day for Falovitch, a former sports manager who turned to crypto entrepreneurship last year with the launch of Leverage Game Media Company in collaboration with billionaire Mark Cuban. But it seems the heist was not all, and a lot more was coming. Some of the reactions to Falovitch’s disclosure of the heist were certainly not kind.
His media company aimed at promoting NFT projects, particularly those from the sports arena.
A group of social media pages co-founded by Falovitch on Twitter and Instagram with the @NFT handle was banned in February 2022 for promoting scammy projects without sufficient disclosures.
Zachxbt, a popular crypto researcher helping hack victims recover their assets, tweeted: “Karma for all of the people you rekt with the scams promoted on your Instagram page. Definitely won’t be tracking this one.”
Falovitch’s tweets generated angry reactions from many more Twitter users