The crypto and NFT space has seen a number of holders lose their investments over the years to scams and hacks, prompting brands and developers to come up with a solution to reduce the number of hacks. Members of the Solana community recently banded together to get their revenge.
A dev partner of a Solana-based NFT game raised the royalty from the usual 5% to an astounding 98%, leading the scammer to list 25 stolen NFTs for sales. Of course, the tokens were quickly repurchased and returned to their rightful owners.
Traders getting scammed out of their NFTs has become a common occurrence ever since Non-Fungible Tokens started making waves. The events that transpired began on Discord when a hack occurred in a channel of cross-chain gaming development studio Uncharted NFT.
Scammers managed to drain 109 user wallets, looting more than 150 SOL tokens and 25 World of Solana or WOS NFTs, including three rare and highly valuable digital collectibles. The World of Solana is a collection of 2,222 unique heroes, with a floor price of 2.03 SOL. The most expensive heroine is currently listed for 123 SOL or $5,600.
After the hack, the community set out to retrieve the stolen NFTs, and the WOS team reached out to development partner, Twitter user Cyberfrog. They raised the royalties significantly, hoping to draw the scammer’s attention. In addition, the community kept an eye on Solana NFT marketplace MagicEden, hoping to find the stolen tokens on the listings. Within two days, the scammer fell for the trap, and the community won back the stolen goods, although the other ten were sniped.
Sniping is a common practice in the NFT and auction process, wherein people wait until the last few seconds to make the winning bid. The strategy is used to prevent other NFT bidders from placing a higher offer before the end of the auction.
Despite initially losing the bids, the community still managed to retrieve the other ten tokens, returning all 25 World of Solana NFTs to their owners. The entire episode was detailed on Twitter, where World of Solana also asked members to use a burner wallet and stay vigilant when minting.
