With the rise of crypto tokens, fake NFTs have become very common in the digital marketplace. Most investors are struggling with the questions of how do I spot fake NFTs and what are fake NFTs in the first place? A token that cannot be exchanged is known as an NFT (Non-Fungible Token). It is a digital good built on a blockchain, which ensures its verification and authenticity. The blockchain can track and store any crypto transactions that have occurred since the establishment of the NFT; whether they were made by the creator/owner or the subsequent purchasers.
Even though NFTs are highly secure since they cannot be exchange, scammers have mastered how to create fake NFTs to sell to naive buyers. It’s essential that each time you are buying NFTs to ensure you check the authenticity of the tokens of interest. Below are the various ways you can spot a fake NFT.
Fake NFTs
Here’s the problem: It is likely that the individual who develops or adds an NFT on the blockchain may not have the relevant copyright for the digital property. Furthermore, if the genuine owner was unaware of these transactions, another person could reap the rewards of their effort. Although this problem is often fixed, it can still happen under specific conditions.
However, before any NFT is submitted for integration on the Ethereum Blockchain or another platform, a clear intellectual property certificate, or at the very least evidence of copyright, must be provided.
How Frequent are NFT Scams?
Simply said, absolutely! The marketplace has become alluring for con artists who prey on naive customers through fraud and plagiarism. As a result of the dramatic rise in popularity of NFTs and the metaverse transactions. Furthermore, difficult to comprehend for many novice investors are blockchain and NFT technologies. These two elements combine to provide the ideal environment for con artists to reap the benefits of novice NFT investors.
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Making NFTs also has a low entrance threshold. This is fantastic for artists, creatives, and NFT visionaries. But it also allows for rapid and inexpensive production of false NFTs by criminals. It’s not all bad news, either. The advice provided here will help you spot suspicious NFTs.
Major Ways to Spot Fake NFTs
Check the NFT Vendor or Artist’s Validity
If you believe you purchased an NFT directly from the artist, verify it by visiting their website and social media pages. Verify that the account you’re looking at is legitimate and not a scammer-created phony.
Checking the details on various websites and other social media channels is usually smart. If you’re experiencing trouble obtaining a trustworthy information source, that’s definitely a negative indicator. Another option is to look for direction and context in reliable NFT forums. Like any other area of investing, investing time, being patient, and doing some research may go a long way to protecting your money.
Verify NFT Sales Volume
There is a strong probability that the NFT has been exchanged before if you are buying a token from a successful series. You may verify this by viewing the NFT on a blockchain explorer or NFT market aggregators. It’s important to look into the NFT more if it has never been sold before.
Examine the activity history again to be sure that the transactions don’t involve exactly the same or a limited number of wallets, particularly when there have been enough sales. This may be a scammer purchasing and reselling their own counterfeit NFTs in an effort to control overall sales and even prices.
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Look at the Cost of the NFT
The price that seems too enticing to be true is probably just that. To compare the purchase price of the NFT of interest and the series’ floor price, check out the entire series. For instance, it’s quite improbable that a CryptoPunk you see for sale for only $6,000 is genuine. Even if the price appears to be accurate, always double-check to ensure that a select few wallets didn’t change it.
Do a Reverse Image Search on NFT
Even though you might believe you are purchasing an original work of NFT art, it may not be the case. You may find further occurrences of the NFT’s picture online by performing a reverse image lookup on it. Although some of them could be genuine, you might discover that perhaps the image was previously made by some other artist without their permission for an NFT. Moreover, you may not have the original NFT you were hoping for but rather a replica of one.
Verify Whether Twitter and Discord are Active
If you have spent enough time in the NFT community, you are likely aware of the significance of the Twitter and Discord applications. As a result, you may determine an NFT’s veracity by looking at the network they established as well as the conversations and tweet trends on Discord and Twitter.
The manner in which an NFT community informs its members is another consideration. Using their Twitter and Discord accounts, legitimate NFT forums make absolutely sure their members are informed about the release date, volumes, floor price, and other parameters. You could also think about perusing the app’s conversations. It may be a hint that the NFT is false if you hear talks that are illogical or discuss subjects irrelevant to the project.
Be Wary of False Giveaways
While reputable NFT teams promote prizes to build credibility, fraudsters use false giveaway announcements to get more people to make an investment that, at worst, has little chance of ever happening.
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Giveaways are generally difficult to refuse. Beware of those that want more information than is necessary in order to spot fake ones. Certain con artists can ask you to link your NFT wallet to their phony NFT. Token theft is a frequent outcome of this. These con artists may disappear altogether if not watched.
Final Verdict
Artists or artist accounts that have been confirmed appear with a blue “verified account” checkmark next to their names, similar to Instagram. It is equally important to look at the artist’s social media profiles to see things like the number of followers, social media feeds, comments, etc.
Some con artists even go as far as to pretend to be the customer support team of NFT’s sales systems to get private data. Thus, you should never disclose your private or personal data. The same idea applies to email and phone fraud.
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