Pransky, a prominent non-fungible token (NFT) collector, was swindled of 97.7 Ethereum worth about $341,500. This happened after the hijack of the website of Banksy, a popular artist, for the promotion of a fake NFT auction.

Nevertheless, almost the entire funds have been recovered. On August 31, Pransky identified one of Banksy’s official website pages promoting the auction for an NFT on OpenSea, a popular marketplace.

Though he disclosed his misgiving for the genuineness of the token, Pransky decided to join in the auction. He placed the highest bid by 87 Ethereum ($304,500) to nearly 100 Ethereum tokens. This bid puts him to be 90% more above all rival bidders in the auction.

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Usually, artworks are tokenized with NFTs. This helps in creating digital certificates of ownership that can either be sold or bought. The process, however, doesn’t leave the buyer with the actual artwork or its copyright.

Pransky’s bid was accepted with flaws. However, the link to the OpenSea auction was shortly removed from Banksy’s website. This prompted the prominent NFT collector to the possibility of the listing being fraudulent.

Within just an hour of passing the auction on Twitter, Pransky notified that his bid of 100 ETH was accepted with a link for him. However, the link has been remove from his website, signifying a possible fraud. Nevertheless, he added that it would just be a matter of time to uncover the truth.

However, after few hours, fraudsters returned the funds to Pransky by sending 97.69 Ethereum Coins. The NFT collector expresses his confidence in receiving the refund.

He explained that he identified the hacker and followed them on Twitter. Pransky revealed to the BBC that he never expected the refund. He confessed that the hacker’s press coverage and being identified and followed on Twitter could have pushed him to refund.

Pransky explained that he was notified of the auction by an anonymous individual through his community on Discord’s social network. He mentioned that the notification alert came on Monday morning. Pransky suspects that the person who alerted him and others involved in the Banksy NFT sale are potential hackers.

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According to Banksy’s associated spokesperson, the artist has no creation of NFT artworks. He further explained that no Banksy NFT auction is affiliated with the artist in any form or shape. However, there’s no comment if hackers intersected Banksy’s website.

Reacting to the whole saga, Cryptochild, a Twitter user, pointed that OpenSea was the debacle sole winner. He mentioned that the platform had carted away with a 2.5% slice of Pransky’s huge bid.

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