NFT music platform Audius loses 18 million cryptocurrency to scammer

NFT Music Platform Audius confirmed that it was exploited by cybercriminals, costing the crypto firm round $6 million. Audius is a music streaming and sharing platform that places the ability again into the palms of content material creators, making it a decentralised platform.

The platform permits listeners to help artists straight by way of its native cryptocurrency, AUDIO. As of December 2021, Audius has virtually 6 million month-to-month distinctive customers and hosts over 100,000 artists.

According to MisTrack, a crypto compliance platform, Audius was not too long ago exploited, resulting in the lack of 18.5 million Audio tokens. It looks like $6 million in Audio tokens was solely traded for just a bit over $1 million in Ethereum. The funds have been swapped by way of Uniswap for 705 ETH and stay within the scammer’s handle presently. Uniswap is a  decentralised cryptocurrency alternate.

“Our team is aware of reports of an unauthorized transfer of AUDIO tokens from the community treasury. We are actively investigating and will report back as soon as we know more,” Audius stated in a tweet. “The issue has been found and fixes are in progress to get things back to a stable state. To prevent further damage, all Audius smart contracts on Ethereum had to be halted, including the token. We do not believe any further funds are at risk.”

Notably, the transaction historical past of the scammer’s crypto pockets reveals that they earlier obtained crypto tokens by way of Tornado Cash, a personal crypto mixer. This protocol is normally used to switch cryptocurrency, providing full anonymity.

It must be famous that the rise in DeFi which facilitates crypto-denominated lending exterior conventional banking, has been a giant issue within the enhance in stolen funds and scams. Hackers have focused DeFis essentially the most, in one more warning for these dabbling on this rising phase of the crypto business.

“DeFi is one of the most exciting areas of the wider cryptocurrency ecosystem, presenting huge opportunities to entrepreneurs and cryptocurrency users alike,” Chainalysis wrote in its annual Crypto Crime report.