Pepe’s no different: Where there’s a meme there’s a scam

Seemingly trying to take advantage of the frothy rollercoaster ride that has been Pepe, at least two Twitter accounts posted offers to mint free NFTs for anyone holding the memecoin.

Only the posted link advertises a supply of 10,000 available NFTs despite the obvious red flag of linking to a collection minted a few days ago and only had 6,969 total non-fungible tokens on offer.

«Navigating to the minting page of the tweet, you’ll find a section titled ‘Buy a Pepe NFT’,» which misleadingly redirects to an NFT collection named Lofi-Pepe, noted The Block Research Analyst Brad Kay. «Funny enough, the official Lofi-Pepe collection, which launched on May 6th, caps at a (fitting) total supply of 6,969. This deceptive practice is a common tactic employed by scammers, luring unsuspecting buyers into fraudulent transactions.»

Example of misleading Pepe NFT tweet.

Crypto scams looking to latch onto the latest craze in digital assets, like this one with Pepe, have for years been such a common occurrence much of the market is numb to it. The two misleading Twitter posts have been reposted and liked tens of thousands of times — a process possibly driven by bots but one that nonetheless makes the pitch appear more genuine.

Bots are such a problem, they almost stopped Elon Musk from going through with his purchase of Twitter last year. He has railed against the fake accounts, at one point saying he «will defeat the spam bots or die trying.»

A call to connect their wallets

The suspicious link asks potential buyers to connect their wallets in order to mint one of the 10,000 Pepe NFTs. The link also references not only the official Lofi-Pepe collection but also the gaming platform Topia, which envisions itself as the «next Minecraft.» It would appear linking to the two legitimate companies is an effort to make the link appear trustworthy.

Kay advises would-be purchasers of Pepe NFTs be increasingly vigilant. With the suspicious link, he said, “unwary investors may believe they’re purchasing from the Lofi-Pepe collection, only to be defrauded of their tokens or inadvertently mint a different collection entirely.”

Both the Lofi-Pepe collection and Topia did not immediately respond for comment. A contact for the Twitter accounts promoting the seemingly fraudulent Pepe collection, @Miley18397515 and @StarkZ_ETHs, could not be found.

The official Lofi-Pepe collection has surpassed $2 million in trading volume since launching, according to CryptoSlam! data.

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