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Chronicles

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Yuga Labs confirms BAYC Discord server hack with 200 ETH worth of NFTs stolen, the third time a bad actor impersonated a Yuga Labs-run account to steal funds

The company behind the Bored Apes NFTs made the disclosure 11 hours after word of the exploit surfaced on Twitter. Source: @boredapeyc .

CoinDesk Eli Tan

Context & Ripple Effects

The BAYC community had already faced a Discord phishing compromise in April, followed later that month by an Instagram account takeover that promoted a malicious mint link. This incident makes the problem a recurring failure of channels members use to identify official Yuga Labs activity, rather than an isolated theft.

Yuga Labs confirmed the loss only after reports surfaced on Twitter, while describing the impersonation as the third instance involving a Yuga-run account. That recurrence raises the operational stakes for BAYC Discord as a trusted distribution channel for announcements and mints.

First-order effects

  • NFT holders targeted through the impersonated BAYC Discord account lost roughly 200 ETH worth of NFTs, while Yuga Labs must respond to another compromise of an official-facing community channel.
  • BAYC Discord members now have a concrete reason to distrust mint prompts and account messages presented as coming from Yuga Labs.

Second-order effects

  • Yuga Labs faces pressure to make official communications more readily distinguishable from impostor accounts after the earlier Discord and Instagram phishing incidents.
  • Other NFT projects using Discord and social accounts for mints must contend with a sharper trust burden: a familiar official-channel format can be used to route users to fraudulent links.

Third-order effects

  • Repeated compromises of project-run communication accounts point toward NFT brands treating account security and verifiable announcement processes as part of the product's credibility, not merely community moderation.
  • If these incidents persist, the gap between an NFT project's on-chain assets and the off-chain channels used to market or mint them will remain a central legitimacy risk.

The trend: NFT projects are confronting a crypto legitimacy gap in which off-chain social and community accounts can undermine trust in on-chain assets.

Related: Crypto legitimacy gap · Yuga Labs · BAYC Discord · Earlier BAYC Discord phishing compromise · BAYC Instagram phishing attack

Related Coverage

Discussion

  • @boredapeyc @boredapeyc on x
    Our Discord servers were briefly exploited today. The team caught and addressed it quickly. About 200 ETH worth of NFTs appear to have been impacted. We are still investigating, but if you were impacted, email us at discord@yugalabs.io.
  • @nftherder @nftherder on x
    🚨BAYC & OtherSide discords got compromised‼️ Seems because Community Manager @BorisVagner got his account breached, which let the scammers execute their phishing attack. Over 145E in was stolen Proper permissions could prevent this https://twitter.com/...
  • @gordongoner @gordongoner on x
    Discord isn't working for web3 communities. We need a better platform that puts security first.
  • @certikalert @certikalert on x
    #CommunityAlert 🚨 We are seeing yet another compromised discord, this time @BoredApeYC. The phishing attack looks to be targeting #BAYC, #MAYC and @OthersideMeta holders. Stay vigilant out there! https://twitter.com/...
  • @coindesk @coindesk on x
    The @boredapeYC Discord server was hacked Saturday, with the attacker making off with 200 ETH ($360K) worth of NFTs, according to @yugalabs, which made the disclosure 11 hours after word of the exploit surfaced online. @elitanjourno reports https://www.coindesk.com/...
  • @broderick Ryan Broderick on x
    In all seriousness: Web3 boosters have spent over a year talking about how community management and moderation is central to their entire movement and, yet, they appear to have spent zero resources building secure and reliable spaces for their online communities. https://twitter.…
  • @boredapeyc @boredapeyc on x
    As a reminder, we do not offer surprise mints or giveaways.
  • @saintsluggo @saintsluggo on x
    “Everyone loses all their money because a Discord server was compromised” seems a pretty critical systemic flaw. https://twitter.com/...
  • @broderick Ryan Broderick on x
    You're laughing? Millions of apes will go without their slurp juices tonight and you're laughing? https://twitter.com/...
  • @jaredctate @jaredctate on x
    Since when are supposedly decentralized #NFT's reliant on centralized #Discord chat servers? Can someone explain what I am missing here? Is my desire to only build on top of truly decentralized, hard capped #Blockchain protocols inhibiting my crypto growth? 🤯 #DigiByte #Bitcoin h…
  • @phequals7 @phequals7 on x
    “Discord Server Hack” is definitely more cooler and sophisticated sounding than “community manager got social engineered into giving up the credentials” https://twitter.com/...