Note that there are more than enough examples of NFT theft in the industry. For example, Kevin Rose, the founder of Moonbirds, fell victim to a hack the day before. Due to a phishing scheme he lost 40 expensive NFTs worth 1.1 million dollars. The most expensive one among them was valued at $500,000.

We can also remember the example of Robbie Akres, who was not only hacked, but also faced problems due to the actions of the management of the OpenSea trading platform. Read more about his situation in a separate article.

Overall, the NFT industry continues to generate good volumes, even despite the general decline in interest in the cryptocurrency market. In the last 24 hours, trading volumes with NFT on the Etherium network amounted to $21.15 million. In second place is Solana, with transactions worth the equivalent of $3.95 million.

Blockchain ranking by trading volumes with NFT tokens

So NFTs are really in demand. And it’s important to keep them safe from hackers.

How not to lose NFTs?

CertiK CEO Ronhui Gu, who specialises in blockchain security, said that the first and most important step in terms of securing digital assets is always user due diligence. Here’s the relevant line cited by Cointelegraph.

Avoid clicking on suspicious links and be very careful when signing transactions.

Indeed, signing a certain transaction can give a smart contract too broad permissions. In particular, the latter could gain access to transfer cryptocurrencies from users' accounts. Which means the scammer could wait until the victim's balance has sufficient funds, after which he or she would steal them. Accordingly, the victim of the hack will not even realise that, in fact, their assets already belong to another person, albeit temporarily at their address.

Top NFTs by capitalisation

Gu also advised against keeping all the tokens in one wallet. Here’s his rejoinder.

Assets should be stored in a secure wallet that interacts minimally with applications, if at all. Hardware wallets have a somewhat steep learning curve, but it’s worth it.

We support this view. Ideally, a crypto investor should use multiple hardware wallets to limit their losses in the event of a sido theft. Keeping everything in one place is not a good idea.

The executive also noted that the issue of security should be taken seriously, as once the tokens have been lost, the victim is unlikely to get them back or any compensation. However, trading platforms for NFTs can blacklist stolen tokens to prevent fraudsters from selling them. The expert continues.

Raising awareness of common fraud schemes is an ongoing effort. Informing users about the safest ways to transact and how they can minimise their risk is the first step to increasing adoption of the Web3 sphere.

As a reminder, Web3 is the next generation of the internet, which is based on blockchain and decentralised digital assets. Here, users are identified by means of cryptocurrency wallets, and large companies cannot monitor their activity and make money from advertising. Consequently, it is the common man who finds himself at the centre of such an ecosystem, not giants like Google, Apple and other corporations.

While the hardware wallets we’re already familiar with might be a great solution, NotCommon CEO Michael Pearce believes there are risks involved as well. Here’s his cue.

People should buy hardware wallets directly from the manufacturer to minimise the chance of third parties tampering with the device.

NFT

And this is indeed the case: there have been previous incidents of funds being stolen in the blockchain niche after investors bought wallets from middlemen. In this case, the fraudsters either manipulated the chip inside the device or took a simpler route. They would trivialise the device and store the Sid phrase for themselves. And if a user starts using a wallet with a pre-generated sido, their money is easily stolen afterwards.


In general, hardware wallets help keep their NFTs safe. In the case of Ledger devices, the tokens are kept safe by a secure screen that is directly connected to the device's chip. This way they are isolated from the internet, which means hackers cannot tamper with what is happening to the screen.

Consequently, the latter will show the real data of the signed transaction under all conditions. So even if the MetaMask-type interface is compromised, the Ledger hardware wallet user will see to which address the cryptocurrencies will actually be sent when making the transfer.


Note the contents of the Ledger Nano X screen. Here it shows the type of transaction – in this case it is an NFT transfer.

NFT transfer on the Ledger Nano X device

Well here you can see the collection of tokens that are being interacted with. That is, the data is as transparent and clear as possible. The main thing is to be careful not to sign questionable transactions.

Transaction with NFT on Ledger Nano X device

Chainalysis analyst Mohamed Issa also shared some insights on the topic. According to him, NFTs are becoming one of the fastest growing areas of the crypto market, they could well be considered a “prime target for hackers”. Here is his quote.

NFT transactions pose a new challenge for blockchain analysis as decentralised protocols are more complex and very difficult to trace compared to traditional centralised services.

Issa also noted how important it is to be proactive when becoming a victim of theft. In such a case, the first thing to do is to contact law enforcement agencies and also keep in touch with centralised trading platforms for NFTs. The chances of success here are slim, but it is still possible to try to get your NFTs back.


We believe that keeping important NFTs is not as difficult as it seems. However, in order to do so, digital asset lovers should understand how hardware wallets work, and thoroughly. It is also necessary to ignore any links from strangers - and even more so transactions that such sites require. And, traditionally, it is important to keep your own sid-phrase away from other people so that no one can access the contents of the blockchain address remotely.