Vitalik Buterin’s X account hacked, $691K from victims’ wallets disappeared
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s X account got hacked resulting in a loss exceeding $691,000. Victims allegedly suffered losses due to a malicious link that falsely promoted a free NFT.
In a Sept. 9 post on X, Dmitry Buterin, the father of Vitalik, announced that his son’s account has been compromised:
“Disregard this post, apparently Vitalik has been hacked. He is working on restoring access.”
The post he mentioned has been removed since then. It had been posted on Buterin’s account, announcing the arrival of “Proto-Danksharding on Ethereum.”
But here’s where it gets interesting: The hacker, with devious intentions, shared a malicious link claiming to offer a free commemorative non-fungible token (NFT). They enticed unsuspecting victims to connect their wallets, only to make off with all their funds.
Now, you might be wondering about the consequences of all this. As a result of this incident lots of users suffered losses in both crypto portfolio & NFT collection. It’s a stark reminder of the importance of staying vigilant in the world of cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
The most valuable NFT pilfered so far is “CryptoPunk #3983,” worth 153.62 Ether, equivalent to approximately $250,543.
The scammer’s wallet currently holds assets worth over $390,000, according to Etherscan, but at one point, as noted by crypto sleuth ZachXBT, the hacker had amassed at least $691,000 worth of stolen loot.
The tweet was taken down within twenty minutes of being posted. All in all, posting a link to a wallet drainer was probably among the least effective things the attacker could do with the Twitter account of a person whose word can dramatically move markets.
Some users claim “if Vitalik can get hacked, anyone can.”
