NFT collectors may well seem to be acquainted with it by now as one of the notable collectors in the community – Pranksy – splurged over $300,000 in crypto on Monday for thinking it was the first-ever NFT art of the mysterious street artist, Banksy. This is not the case, however, as the collector got duped and later found out that the pseudonymous artist’s website was hacked and made the NFT appear to be Banksy’s first digital work.  

Fake Banksy NFT update  

In a recent turn of events, Pranksy has revealed to the pressmen that he got most of his money back. Turns out, the culprit returned almost all of the money except for the ones used as transaction fees amounting to about $6,900 according to reports. The NFT collector said that the refund was unexpected and believes that the press coverage of the hack included the fact that he located the fella and went on to follow him on Twitter. This may have pressured the hacker to do the above-mentioned.  

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As for the identity of the individual who did the deed, Pranksy opted to decline to reveal who the person is.  

What’s the NFT about  

So, what was the NFT art in question you might ask? Dubbed “Great Redistribution of the Climate Change Disaster – it’s an 8-bit image of a CryptoPunk figure smoking a cigarette who has four chimneys and a building for its background. A person who’s all too familiar with Banksy’s works would likely believe that the digital art was indeed made by the famed street artist since it’s one of the topics Banksy has been vocal about.  

Red flags  

There were already inconsistencies about the said NFT art, but Pranksy still went on to purchase it. One of which is that the NFT was unsigned and does not bear any authentication from Pest Control (Banksy’s agency). It was also observed that the NFT’s owner on OpenSea was named “gaakman” as this was also a pseudonym used by Banksy (“Bryan S. Gaakman”) back in 2018 when he entered work into the RA summer exhibition. Despite the name used, it’s still far-fetched if one would analyze it.  

Over on Twitter, there was even a keen-eyed user who pointed out that the page that seems to host the NFT on Banksy’s official website was observed to have an HTML page whereas every other page on the site has an asp page onto them. The link was later on removed which prompted Pranksy to tweet, “It’s all very confusing, some could say… very Banksy?!?” It was at that moment he figured out that the website was hacked.  

When asked if this was just an elaborate hoax, Pranksy denied such involvement. He said that it’s not a prank at all and believes that he just got scammed. Further, he said that he wasn’t forced to bid, adding that’s the risk he took.   

Not the first fake NFT sale  

This is not the first time Banksy got entangled in such a mess. Back in February, a series of NFT art inspired by the artist which includes the work entitled “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this sh*t” (2007), got sold for $900,000. This albeit the fact that Banksy has nothing to do with it.