Buying an NFT is now one of the most popular ways to invest in the crypto market. Indeed, these NFTs have proven to be a good investment option given the number of returns that they have brought for their holders. But similar to anything that gains popularity and commands billions of dollars in market share, scammers have moved to non-fungible tokens in attempts to part investors with their money and a number of them have been successful.
Porn Star Commits NFT Fraud
Lana Rhoades is a porn star turned social media influencer and is making the headlines for successfully carrying out one of the latest NFT scams. Rhoades leveraged her large following on social media to promote an NFT project beginning in January. The investment which promised community members sizable returns on investment quickly garnered support and raised $1.5 million.
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As with any NFT project, users expected to get their NFTs when the project was launched. But panic struck the community when the porn star and social media influencer had decidedly exited the project and vanished without a trace with $1.5 million of investor funds.
CryptoSis which was meant to be an NFT collection of cartoon images of the influencer was found out to be a hoax by YouTube investigator, Coffeezilla. The YouTuber had exposed the scheme in a recent video that shows step by step the events that surrounded this project.
Rhoades had promised investors that the non-fungible tokens would be a profitable investment as she would continue to push to increase the value of the images. The influencer also claimed that other models had signed up to design their own NFT lines, making it a continuing project. She assured her community that they would be able to sell for a higher price than they purchased them for.
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Before her disappearance, Rhoades’ project had received $1.5 million in donations. She had promptly converted all of the donated funds to Ethereum and has since been MIA, saying that the amount of negative and rude comments she received from the community had shocked and upset her.
While Rhoades still has a picture of the NFT project’s logo as her profile picture, her 1.5 million followers are yet to hear anything from her since Sunday. She has not posted on her Instagram either, which boasts 16.8 million followers. However, posts about CryptoSis remain up on her page.
Featured image from MARCA, chart from TradingView.com
