The account was temporarily linked to a scam website that stole more than $70,000 worth of cryptocurrency.

Digital artist Beeple’s Twitter account was hacked today as part of a phishing scam that appears to have stolen more than $70,000 worth of Ethereum.

According to the NFT artist and others on Twitter — including Harry Denley, a security expert at cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask — the Beeple account temporarily shared a phishing link that, if clicked, would steal users’ cryptocurrencies.

The tweet shared a link to a dubious website purporting to be a “giveaway” for Beeple’s collaboration with Louis Vuitton (Beeple first collaborated with the fashion brand in 2019 ). But when people clicked on the link, an Ethereum was automatically drained from their wallets, according to Denley.

 

Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and the blockchain that most NFTs are built on. At the time of writing, one Ethereum was worth just over $2,000.

Denley added that more than $50,000 worth of Ethereum had been stolen and claimed that bad actors were continuing to use Beeple’s Twitter account for another, more “sophisticated” scam – $72,165.60 in total had been stolen by the address when verified by Decrypt . for the last time.

Beeple later tweeted that his account was back to normal and “we’re in control now,” adding: “Stay safe out there, anything too good to be true IS A FUCKING SCAM.”

These scams are common in the world of cryptocurrencies, especially through Twitter. Just in March, a phishing scam hacked into verified accounts to steal over $1 million in a fake ApeCoin airdrop.

Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, is a popular digital artist who helped push NFTs (non-fungible tokens) into the mainstream. Last year he sold an NFT artwork for $69.3 million at Christie’s auction house, breaking records in the world of digital art.

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