Elliptic reports NFT scam losses at US$ 100 over the last 12 months

A report released on Wednesday by crypto auditing firm Elliptic shows that more than US$ 100 million worth of NFTs took place between July 2021 and July 2022, with each scam perpetrator making an average of US$ 300,000.

In its report, Elliptic concluded that the largest single scam saw 16 blue chip NFTs worth US$ 2.1 million stolen back in December 2021. The most expensive NFT stolen was CryptoPunk #4324, which saw scammers walk away with US$ 490,000.

One common way NFT scams occur is through compromised security on social media.  In other words, scammers would post phishing links promising NFTs trades on social media with no intention of sending you an NFT in return, particularly on Discord. NFT thefts that resulted from malicious links posted on social media made up 23% of nearly 5,000 NFTs worth around $20 million stolen this year due to a Discord server breach.

Elliptic also noted that money-laundering on NFT platforms is at a staggering US$ 8 million. Meanwhile, US$ 329 million worth of funds in the NFT market has come from ‘cryptocurrency mixers’.

Most notably, crypto mixer Tornado Cash has laundered over 52% of the NFT scam profits. State-sponsored NFT scams have also risen significantly, such as the US$ 540 million Ronin bridge hack of crypto game Axie infinity linked to North Korea’s Lazarus group.