NFT Theft: 3 Times NFTs Were Stolen By Hackers

From single JPEGs worth $69M to the possibility of using NFT technology in real estate, it’s no surprise that these wildly useable tokens have attracted loads of attention, both good and bad. 

Losing an NFT is more than just losing a screenshot– it could be millions or multiple millions of losses. 

With a higher number of individual wallets suddenly becoming worth millions due to price increases, the rise of NFT theft is inevitable.

A quick refresher: as unique digital assets that live on a blockchain, NFTs represent anything from game assets or characters, songs, articles, digital art, and even tweets. The tokens themselves are valuable because they are unique and cannot be faked since they are blockchain assets– and markets respond accordingly to the provable scarcity. The actual trade value of an NFT depends on how well-known its creators are, its previous purchase value, ownership history. 

Now that we know what NFTs are and why they are valuable let’s talk about some times NFTs were stolen by hackers and how. 

OpenSea’s User Side Hacks 

OpenSea is one of the world’s largest NFT marketplaces. So when, in February 2022, several OpenSea users reported that their accounts had been compromised, it spread like wildfire. 

First, it was thought that the hack had led to NFT thefts worth about $200 million. 

Then, a Twitter thread posted by blockchain security analysis firm PeckShield was retweeted by the CEO of OpenSea. The thread shared a technical analysis of the hack, revealing that only about $1.7M worth of NFTs had been stolen, and that there were 17 users affected.

Whereas readers had initially believed that OpenSea itself was compromised, it came out that the hack occurred through a phishing attack. 

While it looks like only 17 users were affected by the attack, others are concerned that they may have been compromised as well, although these complaints have yet to be addressed by OpenSea. 

Even more, OpenSea faces legal action by one of the victims who lost a Bored Ape NFT worth millions. 

Besides the legal suit and the phishing attack, Fortune reports that OpenSea paid about $1.8 million to some of its users after a bug on its website allowed bad actors to purchase NFTs for less than what they were worth. 

The MetaMask Hack

Metamask is a secure wallet app and web browser known for storing Ethereum tokens and NFTs. 

In December 2021, a phishing attack impersonating Metamask Support invited users to seek help by filling out a Google Docs form. The form requested the user’s secret recovery phrase. A secret recovery phrase would allow a malicious actor to respawn a user’s wallet and steal its content. 

Seeing as Metamask is an ETH wallet, this would majorly affect a user’s NFTs.

Fortunately, the attack was discovered early and the phishing bot was flagged by Metamask.

Sleepminting: The Beeple NFT Theft

Beeple’s Everydays – The First 5000 Days is one of the most valuable NFTs in existence. Sold for a whopping $69M, this NFT rocked the blockchain universe.

So when it was hacked by someone called  “Mr. Nobody,” (aka Monsieur Personne), it was pretty alarming.

Sleepminting, first introduced by Personne, is a process that allows a hacker to “mint” an NFT under the name of someone without their knowledge or consent.

In April 2021, Personne, a self-acclaimed “white-hat” hacker, went on a mission to show the world how vulnerable the technology of NFTs are by attacking the most well-known NFT transaction. Personne sleepminted a second copy of Beeple’s Everydays – The First 5000 Days in Beeple’s name and then gifted the original, unapproved copy to someone named Arsene Lupin. 

Lupin listed the NFT on Rarible and OpenSea, starting at a 0.01WETH, a despicable price compared to its value. Rarible and OpenSea eventually canceled the listing. 

When contacted, Personne wrote, “The goal I want to achieve with this is to take the most expensive and historic NFT and show that if it is not protected, how can we guarantee that any NFT is safe from intentional malice, fraud, forgeries, theft, etc.?” 

Final Thoughts: NFT Theft 

NFTs have the potential to revolutionize hundreds of industries all over the world. As the technology advances, we’ll, unfortunately, most likely see some more thefts, and accompanying security improvements. 

As an NFT owner, keeping your assets secure is vital. 

  • Use secure wallets to protect your addresses from attack
  • Never give out your seed phrase
  • Only use complex passwords that include phrases, numbers, and symbols
  • Store all your passwords and phrases in physical form, locked away safely (not on your computer)

Don’t make it easy!

Trading Competition on MEXC for the Launch of the SuperNode Founder Program

With the launch of our SuperNode Founder Program, we are hosting a Trading Competition exclusively on MEXC Global.

Find more details on the Trading Competition in the “About the MEXC Trading Competition” section below

First, what is the SuperNode Founder Program?

Pastel has made every effort to permeate decentralization and democratization across all aspects of our ecosystem. Having a network of reliable, redundant SuperNodes is key to powering NFT capabilities — such as registration, activation, and validation — along with providing enhanced security, reliability, and governance. By staking 5 million PSL and dedicating computational resources to the network, SuperNodes are instrumental in running both Sense and Cascade protocols, and ensuring such functionality is easily accessible in a trustless fashion via open Web APIs.

We created the SuperNode Founder Program to reward early network participants for their contribution and activity in the ecosystem as well as encourage long-term decentralization. As it stands, the SuperNode Network receives 1,250.00 PSL of each Block Reward, which is randomly distributed to any given SuperNode per block (assuming the SuperNode is in good standing with the network and is not slashed for failure to act or malicious behavior).

Additionally, SuperNode operators are able to earn additional Transactional Rewards for performing various network functions such as registering NFTs or performing Sense requests. As more partners like onXRP.comNervos and TomoChain integrate with Pastel, SuperNodes should expect to see dramatic growth in overall transaction throughput on the network and thereby healthy growth in Transactional Rewards.

Let’s hammer this point home…

To run a SuperNode, you must stake 5 million PSL and dedicate computational resources to the Pastel network.

Why become a SuperNode Founder?

The Founder Program is intended to incentivize early SuperNode operators with additional rewards for participating in the network, providing enhanced performance, ensure network security, and encourage long-term decentralization. The first 250 SuperNodes activated on the Pastel Network will become members of the Founder Program, tracked by their unique PastelID and Address. In addition to receiving Block and Transactional Rewards, Founder SuperNode operators will also become eligible for random PSL or NFT airdrops.

In the future, we will be devising a leaderboard system that tracks various transaction activity per Founder SuperNode — such as the number of NFTs registered or the amount of Sense and Cascade requests processed. Each month, we intend on rewarding the top 10% of SuperNodes with additional awards like fresh NFT mints or other perks from new network partners.

Note that Founder Program rewards are not, nor will ever be, the main incentive to running a SuperNode. They are a bonus reward from the foundation as a ‘thank you’ for becoming an integral part of our ecosystem. Founder Rewards are separate from the Pastel Protocol and administered by the Pastel Foundation on a best-effort basis. While this administration adds a small degree of centralization to the Founder Program, this is mitigated by the fact that it is optional and has no impact at the protocol level.

Please see documentation on how to run a SuperNode here.

Read about our SuperNodes and the operator rewards in the “About SuperNodes” section below

About the MEXC Trading Competition

There is a total of 15,000,000 PSL up for grabs so be sure to register an account on MEXC!

Event Period: March 24th @ 12:00 to April 3rd @ 16:00 (UTC)

All details on the competition can be found here.

About SuperNodes

To handle the requirements of running an application-specific blockchain while preserving maximal decentralization and ensuring that the system is scalable over the long term, we leverage the concept of a SuperNode. Rather than having every full network node in the Pastel system independently verify and handle all the functionality of the system, we have a class of special SuperNodes which are dedicated, high-performance machines that can handle the demanding storage and computational requirements of verifying and serving digital NFT files.

SuperNodes are powerful servers operating at static IP addresses with 24/7/365 expected uptime, backed by collateral held in PSL and are designed to provide advanced transactional services, verification, and governance on the Pastel blockchain. Anyone around the world can launch their own SuperNode — all they need is a fast, internet-connected computer, a modest level of technical knowledge for set-up, and 5 million PSL to serve as collateral. This structure ensures that the system remains fundamentally permissionless: the user does not need to ask anyone’s permission to run a SuperNode. The network can continue to achieve decentralization, with the capability of performing more work and being much more flexible.

The other benefit of SuperNodes is that they create a healthy financial alignment between the custodians of the machines that operate the network and the owners of PSL coins, which creates a virtuous cycle of incentives. SuperNode operators are provided with 20% of the block reward and are also given the opportunity to vote on up to 10% of the remaining block reward to fund community initiatives to support the Pastel ecosystem. Key PSL stakeholders have a direct incentive to make sure their SuperNode is operating properly and not damaging the system.

We have also designed various mechanisms such as Storage Challenges to detect, prevent, and harden against attack vectors or malicious SuperNode operators. Furthermore, the system tracks the reputation of nodes over time in a decentralized way so that nodes observed manipulating or damaging the network can be voluntarily banned or ignored.

Founder SuperNodes are by no means different from other SuperNodes in the way they interact with the network; they are not trusted more than other SuperNodes, and they earn the same economic returns from the Pastel Network as any other SuperNode in good standing.

About MEXC

Founded in 2018, MEXC Global is known as the exchange of high performance and mega transaction matching technology. The team at MEXC Global are some of the first movers and pioneers of financial and blockchain technology. Currently, MEXC Global caters to 6 million+ users in more than 70 countries around the world and we have just started. This magnificent achievement is a significant milestone, and MEXC Global aims to become the go-to platform for new traders and experienced investors as they move forward in their financial journey.

MEXC Global is present across continents obtaining key licenses and passing jurisdictions in countries like Canada, Australia, Estonia and the United States. MEXC Global also offers localized language support for investors from different countries making it easier for them to trade.

About Pastel Network

Pastel is the world’s preeminent protocol standard for NFT technology. Pastel also allows for the development of third-party applications to sit on top of its Network, enabling developers to enjoy the scalable registration features, storage processes, and security of the broader ecosystem. Lightweight protocols such as Sense — which was built to assess the relative rareness of a given NFT against near-duplicate metadata — and Cascade — which conducts permanent, distributed storage of underlying NFT data — can be integrated across any native L1 blockchains or L2 marketplaces.

Pastel is an entirely native blockchain supported by SuperNodes, which provides computational resources to the network to support asset registration, distribution, and permanent storage. Pastel is managed by world-class developers, cryptographers, and technologists, supported alongside an experienced and extensive network of marketers, influencers, and third-party agencies. Pastel is backed by key stakeholders including Innovating Capital, a prominent venture fund.

For more information on Pastel Network, visit https://pastel.network/

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This article was first published by our team here.

Pastel Network Partners with onXRP.com to Provide Storage and Protect their NFT Ecosystem against Scams & Fraud

Pastel Network is excited to announce its partnership with onXRP.com (“onXRP”), XRP Ledger’s premier NFT marketplace. onXRP will be integrating Pastel’s Sense and Cascade protocols into its marketplace and modular DeFi ecosystem. This partnership signifies the continued successes of both Pastel and onXRP, and is a massive step forward for the overall NFT ecosystem. It is a testament to the growing need for NFT reliability, security and verifiability, solved via Pastel’s advanced infrastructure.

onXRP is an ecosystem built by the XPUNKs with the purpose of extending web 3.0 to the XRPL. The platform is separated into different modules, including a Decentralized Exchange, an NFT Marketplace and other community-centered services. It also produces and publishes content about the XRPL, NFTs and the crypto industry as a whole to educate the community and lower the barriers of entry for new blockchain entrants.

“Security and authenticity play an increasingly focal role within the entire NFT sphere,” said Kaj Leroy, CEO of onXRP.com. “With scams and fakes lurking around every corner, an increasing number of people have fallen victim to ever increasing complex frauds. Up until now, no established marketplace has implemented a tool like this one, and we’re proud to announce that we’re changing the game and putting ourselves ahead of scammers, fakes, and copycats. We’re excited to partner with Pastel Network, and we will work tirelessly to make the integration of their tools a seamless experience for all users and artists on the onXRP NFT marketplace.”

NFT security and storage integrity have become the primary issues affecting organizations across the NFT ecosystem. Scams and frauds are widespread while centralized storage is failing to provide adequate reliability. All layer 1 Blockchains and layer 2 Dapps are experiencing these road blocks and are on the search for solutions. Pastel provides them.

With Pastel’s Sense and Cascade protocols, organizations have the ability to prove authentication and certify the rareness of NFTs while having access to permanent and reliable storage via easily integrable, lightweight open-APIs.

How does the integration work?

Pastel Network has not only worked relentlessly to develop incredible infrastructure for the NFT ecosystem, but to also deliver it to network partners in a lightweight, seamless manner. Partners of the Pastel Network such as onXRP and along with other native blockchains or dApps are granted an API Key and Token, which is used to interact with a Pastel Network API Server. The API Key and Token makes requests to the Pastel Network API Server, running a Full Pastel Node signed by the onXRP PastelID.

During NFT minting on onXRP, secure and authenticated (OAuth2) REST API calls are made via an API Server that passes the hash of the candidate NFT to Pastel Network. The return responses — 1) a JSON file with the relative rareness score in the case of Sense and 2) the SHA3–256 hash for the JSON file stored in Kademlia which itself contains the SHA3–256 hashes of the set of redundant copies of the JSON files in Kademlia — are signed by 3 randomly selected SuperNodes operating on the Pastel Network. Smart tickets write and store the outputs to the Pastel blockchain, which is returned to onXRP and included as additional Response fields in their own NFT standard.

Sense is near-duplicate NFT detection protocol on the Pastel Network, built to assess the relative rareness of a given NFT. Sense recognizes the most subtle similarities between two digital collectibles, even if one has been transformed. The protocol goes beyond the standard “digital fingerprint” approach to establishing the rareness of an NFT, and actually looks at the rareness of the pixel patterns in data. While digital fingerprints do allow users to verify that an NFT was created by a particular creator, this is a fairly weak form of rareness. Sense solves this problem by assigning a ‘Relative Rareness Score’ to quantify how rare an NFT is relative to all NFTs in the underlying dataset.

Sense leverages a number of pre-trained deep learning models to transform each NFT into a fixed list of over 10,000 numbers (the ‘NFT fingerprint vector’). It then assesses the correlation between a given fingerprint and the database of all existing fingerprints on Pastel and onXRP’s platform, other NFT marketplaces (e.g., Rarible, OpenSea), and open databases on the entire internet (e.g., Google) and outputs a relative rareness score — a number between 0% (i.e., the NFT is identical to a previously registered NFT) to 100% (i.e., the NFT is completely unique). Sense “sees through” superficial changes in the same way as a human eye, and, like a human, can recognize even the most subtle change in an NFT.

Cascade is a distributed storage protocol purpose-built for NFT metadata in a fully redundant, decentralized, and permanent manner. Pastel is the first NFT platform to have its own completely integrated, decentralized storage layer. Cascade is based on the advanced technologies of RaptorQ and Kademlia and ensures that users only pay once to store their data forever.

By leveraging the RaptorQ fountain code algorithm, Cascade begins by breaking each asset into a series of redundant chunks. Every chunk contains certain random fragments of the combined file which is distributed redundantly across participating SuperNodes running on the network. Two parameters control how the data is encoded into chunks: 1) size of each chunk and 2) desired redundancy factor. The sets of chunks are then randomly distributed across network nodes using Kademlia. No complex or centralized system for deciding which node is responsible for which chunk, no iteration through SuperNodes to find one with the relevant chunk, and no complicated logic for handling chunk re-allocation when SuperNodes enter and leave the network.

These first-of-their-kind protocols combat the most challenging of issues that every organization and individual is experiencing across the NFT ecosystem. onXRP clearly saw the need for next-generation solutions to help support its network and platforms. This partnership with onXRP is a prime showcase for what Pastel can offer to the entire space.

About onXRP.com

onXRP is a technology company driving innovation on the XRPL through the integration of a Decentralized Exchange, an NFT Marketplace and other community-centered services. It also produces and publishes content about the XRPL, NFTs and the crypto industry as a whole to educate the community and lower the barriers of entry for new blockchain entrants.

For more information on onXRP, visit https://onxrp.com/

About Pastel Network

Pastel is the world’s preeminent protocol standard for NFT technology. Pastel also allows for the development of third-party applications to sit on top of its Network, enabling developers to enjoy the scalable registration features, storage processes, and security of the broader ecosystem. Lightweight protocols such as Sense — which was built to assess the relative rareness of a given NFT against near-duplicate metadata — and Cascade — which conducts permanent, distributed storage of underlying NFT data — can be integrated across any native L1 blockchains or L2 marketplaces.

Pastel is an entirely native blockchain supported by SuperNodes, which provides computational resources to the network to support asset registration, distribution, and permanent storage. Pastel is managed by world-class developers, cryptographers, and technologists, supported alongside an experienced and extensive network of marketers, influencers, and third-party agencies. Pastel is backed by key stakeholders including Innovating Capital, a prominent venture fund.

This article was first published by our team here.

Introducing the Pastel Ambassador Program

Build our community. Grow our brand. Earn incentives for your evangelism.

We are excited to announce our inaugural Ambassador Program. This initiative is a call to our community members. While our technology and innovations are revolutionizing the NFT ecosystem, strengthening our community and ensuring its growth is vital to Pastel’s long term success.

We need ROCKSTARS to form our #PastelClique

We have a tremendous community comprised of a diverse group of individuals from every walk of life. It has been rewarding to see the Pastel community grow into a network of crypto enthusiasts, creators, and developers who believe in the future we are building — a better NFT world.

Now, we are calling on YOU to help propel the Pastel community even further. Our program is meant to support a group of early #PastelClique Ambassadors, community evangelists responsible for a wide array of initiatives — from growing new community channels to generating social media content, to organizing meetups and product launches and more. We believe that Ambassadors can spread our vision to the broader community to showcase the magnitude of our product and technology.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for a select number of up to 10 ROCKSTARS with a strong conviction in Pastel and the broader crypto ecosystem. They must be:

  • Passionate and enthusiastic about Pastel’s mission and what our products can do for the NFT ecosystem
  • Excited to contribute to Pastel’s growth
  • Interested in working closely with the Pastel team
  • Willing to network with the different communities that they belong to and discover new ones to evangelize Pastel
  • Dedicated to ensuring that the ecosystem sees Pastel as the GIANT it is
  • Knowledgeable about Pastel’s infrastructure, NFT technology, and the crypto industry in general

Why become a Pastel Ambassador?

In addition to contributing to the growth of Pastel and its overall success, Ambassadors will be able to earn direct incentives. Initial rewards include:

  1. Every ambassador will receive a PSL grant as a THANK YOU for your willingness to help us succeed
  2. Earn further PSL rewards and other drops (including swag, NFTs, and early access to products and events) for reaching certain KPIs and completing specific objectives* for community engagement, project promotion, and education
  3. Lastly, at the end of every quarter, top performing ambassadors will be airdropped larger distributions of PSL

*Complete list of objectives will be shared once the team of ambassadors is filled

How to become an Ambassador?

If you are interested and believe you can help us reach our vision to achieve what we are looking to accomplish, please start by filling out this form by March 17, 2022 11:59 PM UTC. After reviewing applications, we will reach out to schedule an interview with the Pastel Team. We intend to select up to 10 initial Ambassadors to the inaugural #PastelClique.

We are pumped for this program and the beginning of the #PastelClique!! Thank you for your support!

About Pastel Network

Pastel is the world’s preeminent protocol standard for NFT technology. Pastel also allows for the development of third-party applications to sit on top of its Network, enabling developers to enjoy the scalable registration features, storage processes and security of the broader ecosystem. Lightweight protocols such as Sense — which was built to assess the relative rareness of a given NFT against near-duplicate metadata — and Cascade — which conducts permanent, distributed storage of underlying NFT data — can be integrated across any native L1 blockchains or L2 marketplaces.

Pastel is an entirely native blockchain supported by SuperNodes, which provides computational resources to the network to support asset registration, distribution, and permanent storage. Pastel is managed by world-class developers, cryptographers, and technologists, supported alongside an experienced and extensive network of marketers, influencers, and third-party agencies. Pastel is backed by key stakeholders including Innovating Capital, a prominent venture fund.

This article was first published by our team here.