Thread by @sohrobf

I was scammed / socially manipulated / hacked on @Discord and @OpenSea and lost three @BoredApeYC, four @0n1Force, and three @worldofwomennft totally roughly 250 eth in value by getting tricked into exposing the Metamask QR Code in the Chrome Browser Extension. I’ve never felt

more dumb, helpless, embarrased or just plain sad in my entire life. I don’t post much on Twitter. But I want to tell my story so it can hopefully stop this from happening to others, although unfortunately I wasn’t the first because @_jeffnicholas_ started the club yesterday.

Please, please don’t join us. We want this to be an exclusive club of two and hopefully @MetaMask can change this shit QR Code feature because it’s completely unnecessary and clearly a vulnerability.
It all started today when I bought BAKC #648 and when it hit my wallet there was

an issue where I couldn’t list it on OpenSea. I didn’t think much of it but after a few hours of it still not allowing me to list I went into the BAYC Discord and hit up the Support channel. I posted my issue and a few people responded, including Gargamel and NoSass. Then I got

a DM from NoSass saying he would help me and I should join a Support Discord server and he sent the link. I didn’t think anything about it since I had just chatted with both of them inside the BAYC Support channel, so why wouldn’t they be DMing me? I had my own channel inside the

server and there were 4 BAYC team members in there “helping”, including Gargamel and NoSass. That should have been the only clue I needed that something wasn’t right...as if the founders have all the time in the world to fix my OpenSea BAKC issue. I’m a founder, I’ve built

companies, and having 4 people help 1 user is not a way to get anything accomplished. But this is where the manipulation came in, and they were good at their job. They kept me distracted with questions about why I joined BAYC, what I did, etc. When I mentioned what we’re building

at Fan Controlled Football they got interested/excited and we just started chopping it up. I was COMPLETELY off my guard because they made me feel comfortable, and honestly I felt like I was being treated like a VIP. This was the Ape Fam experience and what it was all about.

The founders getting in there and helping out the community no matter how small the issue. We went through a series of things, they were trying to “fix it”, and when nothing else worked they asked me to share my screen so they could see the BAKC and and wallet and maybe help.

When all else failed, they mentioned MetaMask had just put out an update and it had caused some issues. They suggested I resync MetaMask on my mobile with MetaMask Chrome Extension. I had no idea how to do this, so they walked me through the steps, which included going into the

Advanced Settings controls in the Metamask extension and clicking the Sync with Mobile link. There is a warning after clicking and before putting in a password that says “Proceeding will display a secret QR code that allows access to your accounts. Do not share it with anyone.

Support staff will never ask your for it.“ But these were the founders of BAYC, and they were talking to me and distracting me and honestly I didn’t even see, read, or notice the warning. Now going back through the process I see it, but I didn’t then. And now looking closely,

Metamask f’ed up. The warning on the next screen, which actually displays the QR Code, says “Make sure nobody else is looking at your screen when you scan this code”. Why in the hell would that message be on the same screen as the actual QR Code AFTER PASSWORD INPUT!?

Why isn’t that message big and bold and something you have to acknowledge / accept before the code is displayed?? Would it have stopped me? Coin flip. But a jarring red highlighted message that I had to accept before proceeding is probably the way to go.

I’m at a loss for what to do. Thanks to @natechastain from OpenSea all of the stolen items are frozen, but not before most of them were sold. So now a bunch of good people in this community are holding frozen, stolen NFTs that are actually mine, but that they paid for.

How in the hell does this get unfucked? And how can we stop it from happening? I didn’t have a hardware wallet (it’s literally being delivered on Thursday) but I’m not an idiot. I know not to expose my keys, don’t trust people, ignore random DMs, etc.

But the freaking BAYC founders messaged me inside the BAYC support channel and then DMed me. Their name was EXACTLY the same as the founders, down to the digits. The Gargamel#1845 that was in the official BAYC Support channel was a fake!

There are clearly some flaws with Discord, and this has to be top of the list. If I wasn’t an eternal optimist, I would say today was soul crushing. But I’m a big believer in good words, good thoughts, good deeds and the power of positive thinking.

I’ll get through this. My family will get through this. I’ll come back stronger and better and smarter. But this is a big blow, and my whole body hurts from what happened to me today in the metaverse.