Straightforward Safety: NFTs
What is an NFT? Straight to the point.
If you’re here then I’m pretty sure you already know what an NFT is. But do you happen to know about all the scams and intricate ways other people are trying to get those NFTs you just so happened to buy or win in that Twitter giveaway you’ve been tagging(annoying) your friends with for the last week?
Here are just a few scenarios to look out for explained as straightforward as possible aiming towards the massive influx of new people entering the space every day.
Your Friends
If in the morning everything was fine when you were going back and forth with one of your close friends, and all of a sudden by the afternoon they are messaging you about being in some type of odd situation that requires needing you to click some random link or something else very out of the ordinary? It’s not your friend. Be paranoid in this space. It’s okay! It will save you tons of time, money, and aggravation. This type of encounter will usually happen outside of your normal means of communication, but it could just as easily come from the normal source as well. Always confirm you’re actually talking to the person you think you’re talking to before you start handing out sensitive information, clicking unknown links, and downloading things sent to you from this person.
Compromised Discords
You finally joined the Discord server for your first NFT project you aped into. You’re excited and feel safe there for a few days. You’re away for a bit living life and the first thing you see in the announcements channel when you come back is an announcement about a stealth mint that may only be lasting the next x amount of time or only limited to a small amount around the 1,000 range to feign exclusivity. YES! I just got home in time you think. You fumble around to get in your seat and get something minted in this “stealth mint”. You click the link in announcements, you connect your wallet to the site. You did it! Feeling accomplished, you sit back in your chair and rub your hands together waiting to see your spoils of war enter your wallet, and you head into the other sections of the server to see chatting shut down. You see messages from people prior to chat being stopped: ” DON’T MINT. DISCORD IS COMPROMISED. THERE IS NO STEALTH MINT. ”
Your heart sinks. What did I do? Did I lose my money? Did I really just get scammed? You did. And hopefully, it’s just your money you lost there. 9.9/10 projects will never have a stealth mint, especially after the project has already fully been minted out. You’ll also need to make sure you didn’t give any permissions to your wallet on the site you just hooked up to for the mint which will lead us to the next tip . . .
Connecting Your Wallet To Questionable Sites
So you’ve fallen for the above scenario or something else close to it. The next thing you want to do ASAP is disconnect your wallet from whatever site it was you just minted from as you’ve probably given someone complete access to it. They may be able to drain you of your tokens. They may be able to drain you of your NFTs. They may be able to do both. It’s not important which one it is and there’s no time to figure it out. Use one of these two sites listed next to revoke the privilege you’ve just signed off on. It will look like you’ve given access to another address of a user just like yourself as seen in the picture:
Be mindful of where you are connecting your wallet. Check, check again, and check one more time that it’s the proper place before connecting. Scammers will use a link that looks similar to the one you already know related to the project (Ex: You know it’s ProjectX.com but you miss that the scam site was ProjectX.co because it was an exact, visual copy of the .com.). Treat it like giving away instant access to your bank account if you connect to one of the many scams floating around out there. Move quickly to remedy it.
Nobody Needs Your Passwords Or Seed Phrase. Ever.
Period. Full stop. Nobody will ever need a password from you for anything. Nobody will need your seed phrase for any of your wallets. No matter what they tell you or how convincing the story may be, there is still no reason to give these important pieces of information out to anyone. Giving these things out only ensures one thing: You will be losing everything of value in that wallet within a few minutes time. Speaking of no matter what they tell you . .
Theres No Staff To Help You
You may have seen on Twitter someone mentioning getting scammed using MetaMask on OpenSea for example. One of the replies to that tweet appears to be a staff member from MetaMask who sure is eager to privately message you to get your issue sorted out. Or maybe they’ve dropped you a form to fill out for help. This too is a scam. There is no way to reverse a transaction once you have sent it out. That goes for coins(BTC, ETH, LTC, etc. . .) and NFTs. There is nobody out there you can file a formal complaint with to have them hit a button to return whatever it is you lost to the scammer back to your wallet.
Once again: No matter what they tell you or how convincing the story may sound, there is no staff out there that can reverse anything that has already been done as far as transactions go, and they especially don’t need your seed phrase, passwords, recovery phrase, name, dob, etc . . .
Be careful out there. These are only a few of the many ways scammers are trying to get ahold of your NFTs. It’s always better to err on the side of caution when it comes to making decisions pertaining to your wallet.
Key Takeaways
- Learn how to stay safe while navigating the NFT landscape.
(To keep YOUR NFTs in YOUR wallet along with your coins.) - Learn what to keep an eye out for when it comes to ways of getting scammed.
(So you don’t fall for some of the clever schemes.)
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
