It was a usual Wednesday. I was writing a BFN newsletter and was searching for more information about the Porsche NFT Collection. There were a lot of interesting opinions, from the total failure of the mint to its great result. The topic was hot. When a huge brand is minting, it’s always an opportunity to flip quickly or get a token with good utility.
The day was busy for me. I worked ten hours, maybe more, and was tired, frustrated, and in a bad mood. I think that’s important in this story because it impacts my judgment.
Searching for some Twitter posts to the article, I found the one that announced
🚨 Big NEWS 🚨:
Porsche will reduce the number of NFTs in the collection. All costs minted to this moment NFT will be returned. Free mint is open now.
Right now, it looks like an obvious scam. On that day, it seemed like an opportunity to earn something. The desire to mint something special probably blinded me, and I didn’t check the Twitter account correctly.
I posted about this unique opportunity on two discord servers where I’m more active and started to mint Porsche NFT by myself.
I went to the mint website. It looked like a lot of pages. I had no idea how it should look. What URL address should it be. I didn’t check anything on the Porsche discord. Now all this looks like rookie mistakes. I went there and saw that the counter of minted NFTs is increasing. It assured me that mint of this NFT is a good idea. 🤦♂️
There was one more red flagon the mint page. The counter was increasing ideally by one or two new minted tokens per second. It was strange because real mint sites don’t update that counter so perfectly. Often it isn’t working at all, and the page is difficult to load because too many users overload it.
What have I done in that case?
It’s obvious. I connected my wallet and clicked the mint button. I’m a fool - it’s official. 😞
Ok, from this moment, MetaMask is responsible for my security. I didn’t use my cold wallet, so my most valuable NFTs were safe. I used my hot wallet. The problem was that some tokens were on that one. Value of assets, around $500. It’s not a lot, but obviously I’d rather still have it.
At this moment of my story, the MetaMask saves me like a prince is saving sleeping beauty.
I was asked to sign a contract, and MM displayed a big red notification about the contract. It wants to get access to all my assets.
It was too much. I realized that it's a scam. Thanks, Metamask, for saving my $500.
When I went to discord servers, my messages informing others about this unique opportunity were already commented on as a potential scam. I confirmed that and deleted the links. I hope no one else tried to mint that.
I've got here some advice on how to avoid scams:
- always check and use the official mint link from the official discord server
- check on discord if the project's Twitter account is a legit one
- don't try to mint a project that you don't know
- don't share the mint link with others, especially less experienced than you
- double-check if the mint site address is correct
- be aware of any strange behavior on a mint site
- read a contract that you're signing
- use a hot wallet to mint. It would be best not to have a lot of your valuable tokens and definitely not all your crypto on that one.
