Tech billionaire Mark Cuban is the latest victim of a cryptocurrency scam, losing $870,000 across various cryptocurrencies.
Cuban, who had been inactive in the crypto space for months, had his wallet drained of stablecoins, Lido staked ETH, SuperRare tokens, and Ethereum Name Service (.ens domains) tokens.
The suspicious activity in Cuban’s wallet was initially spotted by the pseudonymous on-chain investigator @WazzCrypto. Cuban’s wallet, which had been dormant for 160 days, suddenly saw funds moving.
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WazzCrypto posted screenshots of Ethereum transactions linked to Cuban, raising concerns about the wallet’s security. The alleged hack was later confirmed by media outlet DL News.
Upon learning of the security breach, Cuban swiftly moved $2 million worth of USDC to Coinbase to safeguard his assets. He admitted to DL News that he had not been actively using MetaMask, a browser-based crypto wallet. He believed he had downloaded a fraudulent copy when searching for information on Circle.
“I’m pretty sure I downloaded a version of MetaMask with some shit in it,” Cuban told the media outlet. “MetaMask crashed a couple times. I just stopped. Then you emailed me. So I locked my NFTs on OpenSea. Transferred all my Polygon in the account.”
MetaMask has been used for phishing scams where fraudsters trick users into giving their private keys or seed phrases through a fake extension or application, after which they can drain users’ crypto wallets.
“Since I was only working with the account that got hacked, none of my others gave up anything,” Cuban said.
This is the latest in a series of unrelated high-profile hacks in the crypto landscape. Last week, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin’s X account was hacked and used to steal about $691,000 from his followers through an NFT scam.
Prior to that incident, hackers targeted the popular crypto gambling site Stake.com and were able to steal about $41 million.
Information for this story was found via DL News, and the sources and companies mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to the organizations discussed. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.
