American comedian Bill Murray saw 119.2 ether disappear from his wallet on September 1, after he held an NFT charity auction. Statistics show that most of the ether and NFTs in Murray’s wallet have been moved elsewhere, leaving only about $556 worth of assets.
According to Coindesk, Murray’s NFT charity auction raised 119.2 ether (worth about $185,000) on September 1, but a hacker stole the funds hours after the auction ended.
According to Etherscan’s on-chain data and details from Murray’s team, hackers began stealing Murray’s personal wallet around 7:00 p.m. ET last Thursday. The hacker also attempted to steal Murray’s personal collection of NFTs.
The high-profile hack highlights how even high-profile celebrities can fall victim to crypto hackers and thieves. In Murray’s case, however, he benefited from the security team protecting him from the worst of the matter.
Murray’s wallet security team is made up of NFT consultancy Project Venkman, who moved his high-priced JPEGs including Damien Hirst NFTs, two CryptoPunks, Pudgy Penguin, a cryptocat Cool Cat and many Flower Girls to a secure wallet.
Hackers also tried to steal 800 NFTs from Murray’s collection from the wallet. Fortunately, Project Venkman said it had destroyed the hackers’ related attempts and moved these NFTs to a safe place. They say they execute a set of scripts to automatically and securely transfer these NFTs.
However, they have been unsuccessful with policyholder funds. A representative confirmed that hackers stole 119.2 ether that Murray had raised for a charity auction.
Murray’s team said the hackers transferred the stolen funds to wallets linked to exchanges Binance and Unionchain.ai, but have not yet identified who the hackers were.
While the original ether has disappeared, Coinbase user Mishap72, the second person in the auction, has given out 120 ether (about $187,500) to the charitable foundation Chive Charities to cover the loss, a representative said. Murray originally raised funds to donate to Chive Charities.
Murray’s team said it had lodged a police report and worked with crypto analytics firm Chainalysis in hopes of catching the hacker.
Murray is not a celebrity to suffer a crypto hack this year. The Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, a collection of Bored Ape Yacht Club by Gayku Family actor Seth Green, was also stolen by hackers who are rumored to be paying to redeem the NFT.
