Thread by @NFT_GOD

Last night my entire digital livelihood was violated.

Every account connected to me both personally and professionally was hacked and used to hurt others.

Less importantly, I lost a life changing amount of my net worth

Every channel I have with my community, friends, and family was compromised over the last 24 hours

My Twitter, Substack, Gmail, Discord, and wallets were all invaded and taken over by bad actors

Significantly less important than all of that I lost all of my digital assets

Yesterday afternoon I went to download OBS onto my personal desktop computer.

OBS is industry standard video streaming software. I was excited to live stream some video games for the first time in my life.

What I didn't realize was I clicked the sponsored link on google

After clicking the link and downloading the software, I went to install.

Nothing happened when I clicked the EXE

O well, maybe streaming wasn't for me. I'll attempt to become Brycent 2.0 another time

Played the game for a couple hours. No issues.

After finishing the game I went to pick up my significant other from the ferry

While walking there I got a DM from @kloss_eth that my Twitter was hacked.

I tap Twitter and realize both NFT God and @1BetterbyNFTGod were taken over

I quickly delete the scam tweets the hackers posted. Caught it 2 minutes after the links went live. Phew.

If only that were the last chapter of this story. Unfortunately it was just the first.

Upon returning to my apartment, we make some dinner then sink into the couch

Then I get the DM I've been dreading. "Dude you WETH'd your ape?"

I pop open the Opensea bookmark of my ape and there it is. A completely different wallet listed as the owner.

I knew at that moment it was all gone. Everything. All my crypto and NFTs ripped from me

I sat on the couch numb.

I knew this was only the beginning. This wasn't a wallet compromise. My entire digital livelihood was under attack.

I run to my computer and reset my passwords. Then I wipe my computer and reinstall Windows

After what you can imagine was a subpar night of sleep I wake up to a slew of DMs and emails.

The final shoe has dropped

The creative outlet I care about more than anything else was under siege.

The hackers were sending emails from my Substack to my 16,000 subscribers

My Substack means more to me than anything in my life that's not a human being

It's where I create my most deeply personal work. It's where I built my community. It's the personal achievement I'm most proud of in my life.

It was now at risk of being destroyed

The hackers sent 2 emails to my 16,000 closest fans with hacked links. Trust I've worked over a year to build was gone.

Losing a chunk of my net worth is nothing compared to losing the trust of my community.

I'd lose this ugly snot nosed monkey PFP and all my Ethereum 100 times over if it meant I kept the trust and love of those who support me.

I honestly was able to keep my cool through losing all my digital assets.

I lost my cool when I saw my community was compromised

My heart raced like a Ferrari as I ran to change my substack password on my phone, not on my potentially still malware ridden desktop.

I delete the posts and alert my mailing list

I hop in the Discord and let them know the worst has happened. Every account is at risk

After spending the last 10 or so hours wiping and re-wiping my devices, reseting all my passwords, and getting as much security set up as I can, I'm feeling hope the worst is over.

NFT God is my life's work and purpose. It gives me a sense of living I've never felt before

Losing this account and the community I built would be a nightmare to me

Money is replaceable. My brand and community isn't

Let's talk about the digital assets though and how I lost them.

The number 1 question I got yesterday was "Did you have a cold wallet?"

A month ago I bought my dream computer. A top of the line desktop that will be able to handle all the video editing and gaming I throw at it.

I go to set up my Ledger with it and I make a critical mistake. I set it up as a hot wallet instead of a cold wallet

Now I'm highly technical, but after not setting up a Ledger for 2 years I screwed up.

I entered my seed phrase in a way that no longer kept it cold

I knew I made a critical mistake

To this point, I haven't bought an NFT for months and wasn't planning on doing it anytime soon

Because of that I just didn't have the urgency I should have had to buy a new one. It was always a thing to do for the next day.

Because of this, when the malware was installed on my computer, the hackers had access to my funds.

This is completely my fault.

I didn't sign anything with my wallet. I didn't execute a bad mint. A critical mistake on one technology led to my downfall on another.

The file I downloaded from the ODS sponsored link was obviously malware. The first sponsored link I've ever clicked will certainly be my last

Not buying a new cold wallet immediately was a deadly mistake. But even with a cold wallet, my entire digital world would still be destroyed.

Digital security isn't just buying a cold wallet. It's also being careful with EVERYTHING you do on the internet. Everything.

These last 24 hours haven't been fun, but I'm already well along moving past this.

There's something about getting your livelihood stolen in this way that brings closure.

There's no recourse. It's not fixable. You can't revert blockchain transactions

No amount of emotional turmoil will fix what happened. And because of that I can move forward.

I'm almost grateful for how instantly violent and final this hacking was

A tremendous amount of negative things happened in the last 24 hours. How could I possibly find positives?

One major positive will come out of this

I will be a master of letting go

I'm confident the next time I run into a life altering event like this, I'll be able to let go even faster than this one

Constantly let go. The good, the bad, the horrifying, just let it go.

Nothing good comes from ruminating on anything, both positive and negative.

Almost everything I hold valuable was violated last night. Letting these thoughts run my life could only destroy me

To everyone who has reached out, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. It means more than you can possibly imagine.

Despite the Twitter handle, I'm not perfect. In fact I make mistakes quite often.

I'll work endlessly to build back trust.

To @suthie86 thank you for sniping my ape. Henry will be coming home soon shortly.

To @YouMakinMeCrzy and @Plumferno thank you for the security advice

I got hundreds of DM's over the last day offering every type of support you can imagine

If you'd like to support me feel free to subscribe to my Substack. I have a community I'm building there that means the world to me.

I'm putting the link below but I totally understand if you don't want to click. Feel free to Google "NFT God Substack"

nftgod.substack.com

It's been a tough day but it's time to move on. I still have my health, family, friends and community and that's all that matters.

Now I hope you don't mind if I get back to my regularly scheduled motivational programming tomorrow

With love,
Alex