(Image credits:Tronweekly)
In a surprising turn of events, renowned tech billionaire Mark Cuban found himself at the center of a crypto scam, marking a discouraging end to his recent venture into the world of cryptocurrency. After months of relative inactivity, Cuban’s foray into the crypto space took a painful turn as he fell victim to a fraudulent scheme late last Friday.
Blockchain observers were quick to raise alarms, allowing Cuban to swiftly secure his remaining holdings by transferring them to safety. Nevertheless, the damage was done, with an unfortunate loss of $870,000 spread across various cryptocurrencies.
Cuban’s investments in Polygon (MATIC) managed to remain intact, but his wallet suffered losses in stablecoins, Lido staked ETH, SuperRare, and Ethereum Name Service (.ens domains) tokens.
The first to notice the suspicious activity was the pseudonymous on-chain investigator, @WazzCrypto, who raised the alarm on Twitter, questioning the sudden movement of funds from Cuban’s dormant wallet, which had been inactive for 160 days.
Screenshots of Cuban’s crypto wallets circulated on social media, displaying a series of Ethereum (ETH) transactions, indicating what @WazzCrypto deemed as “very ‘sus’ behavior.” Subsequent posts from the investigator suggested that the tech magnate was promptly informed of the alleged hack, a confirmation later corroborated by media outlet DL News.
Cuban attributed the breach to an oversight on his part, as he likely unknowingly downloaded a fake and deceptive version of the popular browser-based MetaMask crypto wallet. He recounted attempting to gather information on the expanding company, Circle, but inadvertently ended up with a compromised application.
“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,” explained Cuban in an interview with DL News.
Despite Decrypt’s attempts to seek a comment from the Dallas Mavericks owner, Cuban remained unresponsive.
Cuban’s longstanding support for cryptocurrencies and his advocacy for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and blockchain technology have been well-documented. Ironically, the recent hack highlights a point he previously alluded to in an interview with Decrypt—a lesson that may have ultimately saved him a significant sum.
