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- Another crypto scam has been uncovered, affecting hundreds of victims, estimating a loss of about a million dollars or more.
- The scammers managed to trick users by creating a verified mark on the $MASk pair on Uniswap and later disabling the sell option to trap users.
- The community seems angry, not about the scam, but for victims being stupid enough to fall for it and explains that it’s all because of weak analysis and knowledge.
A scam has been uncovered recently in which about 400 individuals have fallen victim to a token that hasn’t been launched yet, the Metamask token. The scam resulted in a loss of several hundreds of Ethereum tokens, however, the exact loss amount is not yet known, it has been estimated to be somewhere in between $1 million to $1.8 million.
Thorough research revealed that the scammers managed to trick users into believing that they were purchasing genuine $MASK tokens. They did it by injecting a piece of code in an application’s front end, the application being DexTools, to gain a verified mark on the Uniswap’s WETH/MASK trading pair on Uniswap. The code was injected in the description and title simultaneously, which was then executed by the website itself, and it displayed the pair’s verified status on the platform.
One of the fallen victims said that “everything seems obvious in hindsight,” however the crypto community lacked sympathy for victims on various social media platforms. Also, DexTools and MetaMask haven’t said anything since and are expected to show a response publicly.
MetaMask Mocked
Joseph Lubin is the founder of ConsenSys, the Ethereum Devs, who mocked MetaMask two months ago in a Twitter exchange. The number of monthly active MetaMask users has constantly increased in 2021, making it the most popular wallet in the crypto industry. It had about 545,000 active users every month in July 2020, which rushed to be 10.35 million in August 2021.
The idea of a $MASK wallet was dismissed by several individuals because of JPMorgan’s stake in MetMask and also the difficulties the token might bring concerning disclosure and compliance. However, Joseph Lubin argued that there wouldn’t be any conflicts of interest because most projects involved with the previous firm in any way are decentralized.
As per the word on the street, the actual MetaMask token distribution will occur through an airdrop, however, nothing is yet confirmed. Another expectation says that anyone who swaps the platform will receive tokens.
Community Lacks Sympathy, Angry Instead
Victims after the scam were left with fake tokens that could neither be sold nor transferred. It was because the scammers disabled the selling option as they injected liquidity in the fake token, actually trapping the victims. Some members on Twitter expressed that it’s shocking and anyone could fall for such stuff, but it is primarily due to the victims’ weak knowledge and inspection. Some even said that it is basic to understand that if there was a $MASK airdrop, the word would have been all over social media, especially Twitter. Also, the anger was observed by saying that you don’t need a well-planned scam, just wait for individuals to scam themselves.
The majority of the community almost had the same mindset, however, some expressed sympathy, and some highlighted the fact that verified mark was the most significant factor that fooled all victims.
Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.
