The security team at Binance has helped recover a portion of the funds crypto influencer NFT God had lost in an exploit earlier this year.
In a Thursday tweet, NFT God said that the security team at Binance has returned a portion of the $150,000 worth of digital assets he lost to Russian hackers months ago.
“9 months ago members of a Russian mob hacked my computer and stole $150,000 of digital assets,” he said. “Today, a portion of that was returned to me by the security team at Binance.”
The crypto personality said Binance tracked the Russian hackers for months, seizing the stolen funds “bit by bit” as the hackers moved them around.
“I’m honestly moved to tears thinking about this.”
“Doing our little bit,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in response to the tweet.
Back in January, NFT God lost all his NFTs and access to social media accounts in an exploit.
At the time, the NFT collector, also known as Alex, revealed that he had inadvertently clicked on a sponsored Google Ads link for video streaming software that turned out to be malware.
The link included malicious software, which created a backdoor for the hackers. He discovered the hack after a series of phishing tweets were posted from his accounts.
On-chain data shows that the hackers stole 19 ETH, a Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) NFT worth 16 ETH, among other NFTs.
The attackers funneled and swapped the funds for unknown tokens on the Fixed Float, a decentralized exchange.
The day after his wallet was drained, Alex discovered that his Substack had been breached. The exploiters sent emails laced with phishing links to his 16,000 subscribers.
“Every channel I have with my community, friends, and family was compromised over the last 24 hours,” he said at the time. “My Twitter, Substack, Gmail, Discord, and wallets were all invaded and taken over by bad actors.”
NFT Market Slump Hits Artists Hard
The NFT market has been experiencing a tumultuous slump, with record low trading volume and plunging floor prices.
According to a report by Alchemy, NFT trading volume in July fell by 29% to $632 million, and token sales fell by 23% to $3.7 million.
In another blow to the emerging NFT market, tensions between traders and creators of digital collectibles have increased amid controversy surrounding royalties.
This friction has resulted from the recent decision by top NFT exchanges, including Blur and OpenSea, to cut royalty rates paid to artists when a token’s ownership changes.
The reason behind the move is that lower costs will incentivize more buying and selling in a market that has seen trading volumes plummet by 95% from $17 billion in January 2022.
Royalties, which reached a peak of $269 million in January, have since dwindled to just $4.3 million in July, as the rates paid fell from as much as 5% per transaction to a meager 0.6%.
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