Mark Cuban Latest Victim of Nearly $1 million Phishing Scam: Here’s How they Drained his Wallet

Key Takeaways

• Mark Cuban’s crypto wallet was hacked and around $900,000 worth of crypto was stolen.
• Cuban asserted he was unaware of how the hacker gained access to his wallet.
• Crypto experts think Cuban must have done something wrong to have had his account breached.
• He has maybe signed a fraudulent transaction or had his private key compromised.
• Cuban has been a victim of cryptocurrency hacks before.

Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner, TV personality, investor, and millionaire, recently fell victim to a phishing attack. Independent blockchain researcher Wazz reported the incident on September 15 at 8:00 UTC.

After five months of inactivity, unusual activity was observed  on Cuban’s OpenSea wallet, “mcuban,” resulting in the complete depletion of its balance.

“Did Mark Cuban just have his wallet stolen? All assets have simply relocated and my wallet has been idle for 160 days,” Wazz posted.

Multiple batches of assets, including Tether, Lido Staked Ether, and USD Coin, were withdrawn from the wallet, according to the transaction history on Etherscan . Everything happened in about ten minutes.

Then, $2 million worth of USDC were transferred from Mark Cuban 2 wallet to another wallet.

Wazz believed Cuban was redistributing his wealth among several wallets. But after a few hours, the millionaire, 65, confirmed the information. After making a deposit on Coinbase, the hacker also removed his ETH and MATIC holdings. The transferred money  are broken down as follows:

• 5.29 ETH ($8,730)
• 338,206 STETH ($557,680)
• 12,355 MATIC ($6,590)
• 7,020 RARI ($6,340)
• 4,860 USDT ($4,860)
• 4,338 ENS ($33,270)
• 175,040 USDC ($175,040)

Scam Suspects, Lingering Doubts from Past Errors

Reports claim the hacker took around $900,000 from Cuban’s hot wallet. Cuban admitted he hadn’t used MetaMask in a while, and the hacker might have exploited this. He suspects  he may have unknowingly downloaded a fake MetaMask, falling victim to a phishing scam.

Cuban moved $2 million in USDC to Coinbase Custody after discovering funds missing from his hot wallet and other assets.

Crypto experts speculate that Cuban’s actions, such as potentially signing a fraudulent transaction or having a compromised private key , might have left his wallet vulnerable, leading to the direct loss of funds.

Cuban has been a victim of cryptocurrency hacks before. He experienced a rug pull in June 2021 and lost an undisclosed sum of money when Iron Finance , an algorithmic stablecoin project, collapsed as a result of a bank run.

At the time, Cuban held himself responsible for his lack of diligence and laziness.

“Even if I acted tough about this, the actual blame lies with myself for being slack. I was too lazy to do the math to figure out what the relevant KPIs were since DeFi plays like this are all about numbers and revenue, Cuban said in response to the event.