A group pitches the idea of a "Cryptoland" crypto-themed private island with a video that is nearly indistinguishable from satire
Signs unfortunately point to this being an actual, real project rather than satire, but the video purporting to advertise it dunks on cryptobros harder than most satirists have managed to. A campy 3D-animated video with strong Fyre Festival vibes is complete with scenes of its cryptobro main character uncomfortably hitting on a female employee of "Cryptoland", and walking around with an anthropomorphized coin who is apparently named "Connie" (so like... con?), and performing in a terrible musical number. The project's founders say they've already spent more than a year and employed 30 digital artists to produce their 3D-animated pitch, but it doesn't appear that they've put the same effort into making their ideas a tangible reality. They own no land on which to have started construction on their various attractions, or to park the Lamborghinis they promise to provide. One thing they have done, though, is list parcels of land on this apparently as-yet-imaginary island in Fiji for sale — for the low, low price of 319 ETH (about $1.2 million).
Hacker steals around $55 million from bZx
An attacker fooled a developer of the bZx decentralized finance platform into opening a Word document with a malicious macro, which ran a script that gave the attackers access to the developer's crypto wallet private keys. They were able to gain access not only the developer's personal wallet keys, but to two keys to bZx wallets. The attacker made off with approximately $55 million. bZx subsequently tried to offer the attacker a bounty to return the funds, though they were not successful.
Media outlets are duped into believing that Kroger will begin accepting Bitcoin Cash
PR Newswire republished a fake press release which claimed that the Kroger supermarket chain would begin accepting "Bitcoin Cash" (not to be confused with Bitcoin) at its outlets. The fake press release was briefly successful in pumping the value of the currency before it was revealed to be a hoax.
Blockchain Global enters liquidation
Blockchain Global, the parent company of a cryptocurrency exchange called ACX.io, entered voluntary administration after its protracted collapse. Customers had been unable to access funds on the exchange since late 2019.
Creditor claims are likely to exceed $50 million. The operators of the company allegedly commingled customer, investor, and company funds, and used this pool of money on personal expenses and investments in other companies. The liquidator has recommended that the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) investigate the company's directors, Sam Lee, Zijing "Ryan" Xu, and Liang "Allan" Guo.
Oracle manipulation attack against Vesper Finance nets hacker over $3 million
By manipulating the price of a low-liquidity, beta-stage stablecoin, an attacker was able to borrow all tokens in a Rari Fuse pool using the initial token as (inflated) collateral. They then swapped the tokens for Ethereum, and made off with more than $3 million.
BXH exchange exploited for $139 million
The decentralized exchange BXH was exploited for $139 million. BXH CEO Neo Wang attributed the exploit to a compromised administrator key, which he said suggested either a staff member's computer was breached, or a staff member themselves was behind the theft. BXH offered a reward to the hacker if they returned the funds, and offered a $1 million bounty to any person who could help retrieve the funds, but was ultimately not successful in having the money returned.
Creators of a Squid Game-themed token make off with more than $3 million
Creators of a Squid Game-themed token (not affiliated with, or authorized by, those behind the Netflix series) created a token which quickly skyrocketed in value and earned news coverage in outlets like the BBC. Not long after investors began to report they were unable to sell their tokens, creators drained $3.36 million out of the liquidity pool in an apparent rug pull.
NFT collector scammed out of almost $1 million
NFT collector Calvin Becerra fell for some social engineering on Discord: "Guys posing as buyers in Discord were helping me troubleshoot a problem we thought was happening... They walked me through language settings in my MetaMask and had me choose an option and took everything." The scammers obtained three of his "Bored Ape Yacht Club" NFTs (one pictured), which collectively valued around $1 million. Becerra successfully lobbied OpenSea, Rarible, and NFT Trader to block sales of the stolen NFTs, though some viewed the NFT exchanges' intervention as a demonstration that these exchanges can indeed interfere with access to the blockchain.
Developer of "Monkey Jizz" cryptocurrency makes off with $270,000
In a twist absolutely no one could have predicted, the developer of a coin called "Monkey Jizz" ran off with around $270,000. The project promised to share a portion of transactions with all investors, and eventually publish a video game. However, on October 31, the developer set a 94.9% sale fee to discourage people from selling, then transferred out the cash and disappeared.
$60 million disappears in AnubisDAO project within a day of its launch
A project called AnubisDAO launched a coin called ANKH, and were quickly flooded with cash from investors hoping to find another dog-themed memecoin success like Dogecoin or Shiba Inu. In less than 24 hours, the money vanished from the liquidity pool in what project creators claim was a phishing attack, but more likely was a rug pull. One investor interviewed by CNBC said he had invested nearly $470,000 in the coin before the money was drained.