When the NFT community was really enjoying the first-ever experience of physically being at Venice Beach to mint their Cryptovenetians NFTs and getting to know, hang around with people of similar interests in person, it came as a nightmare when the balance of 309 NFTs out of 1000 was stolen by a malicious actor(s) overnight!
While the whole CV team and the thousands of people waiting for their appointments, awaiting their opportunity to experience the magic of in-person minting, were asleep, the tokens numbered 692-1000 were stolen.
A Short Recap about CV:
CryptoVenetians are a generative art NFT created via the Art Blocks contract on the Ethereum chain. The main highlight of the NFT is that you should be present physically to mint the NFT at their Bright Moments Gallery at 62 Windward Ave in Venice Beach, CA. You should have 10 BRT tokens to mint the NFT. It is not a walk-in, just go and mint anytime scheme but a prior appointment is required to experience the absolute fun of one of its kind. Only 10 persons get reservations per day and each could return home with one minted CV and a heart full! Only 1000 CV NFTs ever were available for minting.
Had one of the most inspiring days at @brtmoments with @akashrnigam, @Coldie, @JENergizer, @Cooopahtroopa and of course @cryptovenetians.
— Izzy Pollak | @Genies (@IzzyPollak) August 11, 2021
Seeing friends in person that I’ve been hanging with online for over a year put rocket fuel in my tank. #NFTFam - wgmi pic.twitter.com/tObLM3yDjX
What happened on August 11, 2021?
Ans: “The CryptoVenetian Heist” as quoted by the team
An update on the CryptoVenetian heist:
— cryptovenetians (@cryptovenetians) August 11, 2021
Last night, 309 CryptoVenetians were minted through a sophisticated heist that targeted a member of the @brtmoments DAO.
All 1,000 CryptoVenetians have now been minted.
Here is our official response 🧵👇
Thanks again to @APEDcollective and @yonmeister_art for the 🔥🔥🔥: BRT 🤝 BAYC https://t.co/RiwKwNGop4
— brightmomentsgallery (@brtmoments) August 10, 2021
SO TEAM, HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO RESPOND?
Very responsibly, very convincingly - reiterating the faith of community members and winning their hearts again.
The stolen NFTs were available for sale on the Opensea market later the day for 1-2 ETH per NFT. The Cryptovenetians team had announced immediately that “owners of cryptovenetians #692-1,000 will not be provided with utility otherwise available to legitimate members of the community”, requesting to not buy the stolen NFTs as the metadata of these CVs were to be erased soon by updating the ArtBlocks API image hosting server. ”Once this is deployed, CVs obtained through the heist will not display properly on auction sites like OpenSea”. This would differentiate the legitimately minted CVs and hence would increase their value.
The members with an appointment for minting were called personally to inform them of the situation and are offered an IRL minting experience, with a time of course. The outpouring of support from the community was overwhelming. Nevertheless, the team is determined to keep providing such wonderful experiences to its people - they are moving forward with their roadmap and as previously planned, the opening of physical minting experiences across cities around the world, starting with New York this fall.
“We will grow from this together and come back stronger than ever”.
CryptoVenetian Team's Request For A Return
On 14th August, Cryptovenations requested for a return of the missing NFT’s through a tweet.
To whom it may concern: please return the 309 missing CryptoVenetians (692 - 999) to the following address: brightmoments.eth. We remain optimistic about their recovery, so that we can all move forward as a community.
— cryptovenetians (@cryptovenetians) August 14, 2021
Devil Lives In The Details And Blockchain Never Lies
Detailed analysis of the events connecting the dots was published online.
Highlights
As suspected earlier, the key question was how come none of the team members of the DAO had no clue what happened during that day, on top of that they didn’t seem that eager for investigation, that’s just us.
A further breakdown here 👇
The IRL CV minting process works as follows:
- The visitor schedules an appointment
- Next, one must send 20 BRT tokens to a computer program that creates the CryptoVenetian and then pays in ETH (the fee) to have their
- .
- Without this BRT token and Ethereum fee, the transaction will not occur.
- Therefore the Ethereum and BRT tokens used to pay for the fees and activate the computer program to create the CryptoVenetian must originate from somewhere; it does not just come out of thin air.
- In addition, only one person can create a CryptoVenetian in person.
- To acquire BRT tokens, you must be in person at the gallery to receive them.
Hence, one cannot create a CryptoVenetian without:
- Being personally present onsite at the gallery
- Acquiring 20 BRT tokens at the gallery and sending them to the computer program that creates the CryptoVenetian.
- Paying for the transaction in Eth to create the CryptoVenetian.
Perhaps, This exhibit connects the dots to visualize some of the key activities of the DAO member ( claimed to be hacked )
The question of an outsider having access to the BRT tokens has raised speculations as reviewed in the below article
CryptoVenetian Heist Analysis
Heist Or A Scheme?
Now that's a million-dollar question at the moment. With the pure transparency that blockchain offers we believe the question gets answered in the days to come.
