Zagabond’s controversial past of abandoning other NFT projects
In May of 2022, the NFT community was surprised to learn that Zagabond was the mastermind behind the now-defunct projects CryptoPhunks, Tendies, and CryptoZunks. Some of these projects were regarded as rug pulls by the community as they were abandoned after the mint without clear communication.
Many collectors and web3 enthusiasts felt that the Azuki founder committed a major misstep by not only withholding this information from his followers by changing his identity multiple times in the past but also calling abandoned communities ‘his learnings’.
After the community outrage and the Azuki floor price falling more than 50%, Zagabond released an official apology. He, later on, tried to redeem himself by taking on steps like redistributing back some of the funds to the past communities. Reactions to the apology were mixed but the sentiment and floor price for Azuki eventually stabilized.
Azuki Twitter security breach let hackers steal $758K from users
On January 13th, Azuki introduced its mysterious metaverse city, Hilumia, which led to a lot of speculation and hype. Two weeks afterward, on January 27th, hackers took advantage of the community’s expectations. The hacker group took over Azuki’s Twitter account and deployed a malicious smart contract via a tweet – baiting victims to claim land through a fake minting website.
The community was quick to respond and the Azuki team regained control after four hours. Unfortunately, the hackers had already managed to steal 758,576.68 USD worth of assets, including 18 NFTs from 10 victims, in less than an hour by then.
The assets were distributed to wallets involved in previously organized hacks and to TORNADO CASH. The hackers spent the following hours and days swapping ETH via UNISWAP and selling the stolen NFTs via X2Y2. This incident highlights the importance of being cautious and vigilant when interacting with the blockchain space, especially when it comes to social engineering tactics like phishing.
Check out our in-depth analysis here if you want to learn more details about the hack.