A Real Trick on April Fool’s Day: Jay Chou’s BAYC NFT was Stolen

1. On April 1, Jay Chou, an Asian music superstar, posted on instagram, saying that his BAYC#3738 NFT was stolen.

2. The theft may have been caused by a phishing attack on Jay Chou, who said that a friend clicked on a phishing website in order to help him mint new projects of Jeffrey Huang, an intimate friend of Jay Chou, which led to the theft of NFT.

3. As an ordinary user, the most important point is to carefully identify phishing websites and pay attention to distinguish true and false information.

4. In addition to the advantages of high liquidity and low fees from Gate.io, there are multiple guarantees of asset security. NFT minting, trading, and more can be done safely on the NFT creation and auction platform of Gate.io.




On April 1, Jay Chou, an Asian music superstar, posted on instagram, saying that his BAYC#3738 NFT was stolen. He especially stressed that "this is not an April Fool's Day joke" and "please be careful". It is reported that the stolen BAYC#3738 was presented to him by Jay Chou's friend Jeffrey Huang (nicknamed MachiBigBrother) in January this year. Jay Chou also said, "it seems that I should ask for a stronger one from my big brother". Within hours of the theft, the NFT assets changed hands multiple times on LooksRare for as much as 130 ETH, 155ETH, approximately $500,000.


The theft may have been caused by a phishing attack on Jay Chou, who said that a friend clicked on a phishing website in order to help him mint new projects of Jeffrey Huang, an intimate friend of Jay Chou, which led to the theft of NFT.

On Etherscan, we can find the transaction record of the thief transferring BAYC #3738 out of Jay Chou's personal address. As shown in the image, Jay Chou's personal address is 0x71de21 and the attacker's address is 0xe34f00. Currently, the attacker's address has been marked as a phishing address. According to the analysis of the blockchain security team - SlowMist, Jay Chou signed the approved transaction at 11:02 on the same day and granted the NFT permission to the attacker's wallet. Then at 11:07, the attacker transferred the NFT to his wallet.

Jay Chou's Unbreakable bond with NFT

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The full name of BAYC is the Bored Ape Yacht Club. It is built on Ethereum according to the ERC-721 contract standard. It takes apes as the theme and contains 10000 distinctive NFT avatars. The avatar data is hosted on IPFs. The project is to design different expressions, headwear and clothes for apes, so as to generate bored ape heads in different forms. Known as the Ethereum of NFT, BAYC has now won the broadest consensus in the crypto field and accumulated a large number of loyal followers.

At the end of August 2021, Stephen Curry, a famous NBA star, spent 55 ETH (approximately $180000) to buy a BAYC avatar in a rough suit. This event also made the Bored Ape project and the NFT technology behind it completely famous all at once. In addition to Curry, Shaquille O'Neal, Neymar Jr, Justin Bieber and the famous rapper Snoop Dogg are all holders of BAYC.

Due to the growing influence of NFT in the entertainment industry, Jay Chou could not avoid the charm of NFTs. As early as last October, Jay Chou and Vincent Fang cooperated with Soka Art to launch the limited edition of punk cat sting (blue and white porcelain) doll jointly signed by Vincent Fang and Jay Chou, with an anti-counterfeiting NFT certification. In the previous blog post "Phanta Bear NFTs earn 60 million RMB | “Unspeakable Secrets” Between Jay Chou and Fans", we also introduced the Phanta Bear NFT series launched by PHANTACi, a trendy brand owned by Jay Chou, in cooperation with Ezek, a blockchain entertainment platform.

After the theft, Jay Chou showed an Azuki NFT with a style similar to the cover of the music album "Fantasy" on instagram. It seems that this superstar’s interest in NFT will not fade for the time being.

(for Azuki NFT, please refer to our blog post recently: Big Vision of Azuki: Azuki’s Sales Volume Surpass BAYC）

How to purchase and secure NFT?

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This NFT theft incident also left us space for reflection, that is, as ordinary users, how to prevent relevant risks and safely buy and hold NFT? The first and most important point is to carefully identify the authenticity of the website. At present, there are a large number of phishing websites counterfeiting formal NFT minting and trading platforms on the network. Once users authorize their wallets to such websites, the relevant crypto assets will encounter severe risk of theft. Jay Chou's NFT may have been stolen by such deception using phishing sites. In addition, other mixed information on the network also needs to be identified. Some fraudsters will cheat users' private keys and other secret information through false airdrops.

In addition, we also recommend the NFT creation and auction platform of Gate.io. In addition to the advantages of high liquidity and low fees from Gate.io, there are multiple guarantees of asset security. Users can safely conduct NFT minting, trading and other operations on the NFT Magic Box of Gate.io.


Author: Gate.io Researcher: Ashley H. Translator: Joy Z.
* This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment suggestions.
*Gate.io reserves all rights to this article. Reposting of the article will be permitted provided Gate.io is referenced. In all other cases, legal action will be taken due to copyright infringement.

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