Hack on DeFiance Capital Founder Cheong Sees Him Lose $1.7M in NFTs and Crypto

DeFiance Capital founder Arthur Cheong has fallen victim to a digital asset hack. The popular venture capitalist issued a statement on Twitter disclosing that he had lost more than $1.6 million in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and crypto. Furthermore, Cheong explained that the unknown hacker was able to compromise his device via a technique called spear phishing. Discussing the technique Weighing in on the spear-phishing technique, the email of which he shared a screenshot to his Twitter, with the following caption:

“Found out the likely root cause for the exploit, it’s a targeted social engineering attack. Received a spear-phishing email that really seems to be sent by one of our portco with content that seems like general industry-relevant content. They are likely targeting all crypto peep.”

The hack began at 12:50 am UTC, with the unknown assailant draining one of Cheong’s Ethereum (ETH) wallets. According to estimations by security firm PeckShield, among the stolen assets were popular NFT collections. These included 17 Azuki, 5 CloneX, 2 Hedgies, and 33 Second Self. After stealing these items, the hacker proceeded to sell them on marketplaces such as OpenSea. In addition to the NFTs, the cyber thief also moved several digital tokens to a wallet in their control. Examples include wrapped Ether, Lido DAO Token, LooksRare, and DYDX. 

DeFiance Capital Founder Receives Sizable Support in Light of Hack

However, Cheong has received an overwhelming show of support from the crypto community in light of the hack. Individuals are coming forward, in droves, to help the DeFiance Capital founder retrieve the stolen digital assets. Some of them are surprisingly returning any of the stolen assets they might have unwittingly bought from the hacker. For instance, an NFT community member named “Cirrus” returned two of the stolen Azuki NFTs after initially buying them. According to Cirrus, he:

“…found out they were hacked, and instead of selling them for profit like the other folks who got some of his, decided I’d sell them back to him at cost to help him out.”

Cirrus further suggested that he was moved to being empathetic towards Cheong because he has experienced the situation before.

In addition, Cheong implored people to blacklist the hacker’s wallet address as the hacker still seems to be in the process of siphoning more funds from Cheong. As it stands, the cyber assailant has around 585 ETH ($1.7 million) in his own wallet. 

There is currently a conversation thread on the venture capitalist’s Twitter page where users are trying to ascertain facts on the hack.

Previous NFT Hack

Prior to Arthur Cheong’s hack, several other high-profile investors have also lost valuable NFTs and other digital assets to hackers. In January, New York-based NFT collector Kramer reported that someone hacked their wallet. The attacker allegedly made away with nearly $2.2 million in Bored Ape and Mutant Ape NFTs.

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Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.