Mark Cuban loses $860,000 of crypto to phishing attack

Quick Take

  • Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban suffered a phishing attack on one of his crypto wallets with the hacker making off with over $860,000 in various tokens. 
  • Cuban was able to salvage millions of dollars in tokens and his CryptoPunk.

One of Mark Cuban’s crypto wallets was drained of over $860,000 in tokens and NFTs following a phishing attack late last night, according to blockchain data and confirmed by outlet DL News. 

The hacker made off with $555,000 in Lido Finance’s staked ether ( stETH -1.22% ) and $175,000 in USD Coin ( USDC -0.083% ) on Ethereum ETH -1.17% from the wallet, along with valuable stakes in tokens such as ethereum name service, polygon, superrare, and others. The attacker is currently consolidating the stolen funds. 

The hack was first spotted by pseudonymous Twitter user WazzCrypto. Cuban later told DL News that he was the victim of a phishing attack, claiming to have downloaded a fraudulent version of MetaMask. Cuban told the outlet, “Someone got me for 5 eth,” making it unclear when he realized the damage was far greater. 

A partial recovery

Luckily for the Shark Tank personality, it appears Cuban was able to salvage $2.5 million in USDC on Polygon MATIC +1.26% by transferring it to Coinbase before the hacker could make off with it, according to an X post by Arkham Intelligence. The USDC stolen by the hacker was on Ethereum, not Polygon. 

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Cuban was also seemingly able to save his CryptoPunk, worth at least $77,000 at current floor prices, by transferring it to a wallet labeled as “Mark Cuban 3” by EtherScan. 

Cuban’s other wallets appear to be unaffected by the hack. The Dallas Mavericks owner told DL News, “Since I was only working with the account that got hacked, none of my others gave up anything.”


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

Zack Abrams is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. Before coming to The Block, he was the Head Writer at Coinage, a Web3 media outlet covering the biggest stories in Web3. The story he co-reported on Do Kwon won a 2022 Best in Business Journalism award from SABEW. Other projects included a deep dive into SBF's defense based on exclusive documents and unveiling the identity of the hacker behind one of 2023's biggest crypto hacks — so far. He can be reached via X @zackdabrams or email, [email protected].

Editor

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