Pranksy Pranked Out of 100 ETH by a Fake Banksy

NFT collector Pranksy stirs Twitter with questionable Banksy NFT

Pranksy, one of the most recognizable NFT collectors on Twitter, has stirred the masses with a recent Banksy purchase. According to his latest tweet, Pranksy purchased an official Banksy NFT for 100 ETH. Unfortunately, minutes after the purchase, the link to the OpeanSea auction disappeared from Banksy’s official website. Several hours later it was revealed that the Banksy NFT is fake.

Pranksy started the conversation about the potential Banksy scam himself. He openly wondered whether he’d been tricked and his $340,000 investment had gone down the drain.

[update Sept 1, 2021] The hacker sent back the ETH Pranksy paid for the NFT, minus the transaction costs. According to Pranksy the hacker got nervous when Pranksy tracked him down.

In the same Twitter thread, hundreds of crypto and NFT enthusiasts voiced their opinions. Some say that this could not have been a prank/scam NFT. The reason for that – a link to the OpenSea auction was live on the verified official Banksy website. Others state that a hacker might have found a way to alter the HTML code of the Banksy website, legitimizing a fake NFT and subsequently pranking Pranksy. 

Pranksy’s new NFT

Pranksy bid 100 ETH in an OpenSea auction for an NFT titled “Great Redistribution of the Climate Change Disaster”. The image depicts a CryptoPunk style face and several power plant smokestacks polluting the air in the background. While very minimalist, the artwork fits in Banksy’s thematics concerning social change and global inequality topics. 

The OpenSea records show that Pranksy’s newly purchased NFT is part of the gaakmann collection. While this might not seem even remotely close to a legit Banksy collection, Twitter users speculate. According to some, Pranksy might have bagged a legitimate Banksy NFT. Some time ago, Banksy’s official Instagram account released a post explaining that Banksy used the name Bryan S Gaakman, an anagram standing for “Banksy anagram”.

Even if this can be interpreted as a somewhat legitimizing factor, this information is public. This means that anyone with enough patience could have scrolled through Banksy’s Instagram feed and found a suitable name for their new fake collection. 

Another argument favoring this being a prank is that Banksy would never try to profit from art sales so blatantly. According to Pranksy, the account that sent him the Great Redistribution of Climate Change Disaster NFT also minted a second NFT with a starting price of 30 ETH. This is not typical behavior for a socially engaged and seemingly selfless artist like Banksy. Pranksy went on to claim that this most probably is a scam.

A lesson for the history books

The drama surrounding the Banksy NFT ended several hours after the initial Pranksy tweet. According to a subsequent thread launched by Pranksy, the NFT is a fake. In his tweet, Pranksy explains that a BBC journalist contacted him, explaining that the NFT has nothing to do with Banksy or his team.

The NFT history books will surely remember this incident. As an avid NFT collector, Pranksy has 53,252 NFTs worth somewhere around $12,63 million with the ETH/USD pricing at the time of writing. While 100 ETH might not seem like a huge loss considering this portfolio, this is still a memorable pranking event. Perhaps the story of the fake Banksy will ultimately become a good investment for Pranksy, as stories often add value to an NFT. 

If you’re curious to learn more about Pranksy’s NFT Portfolio, you can check it out here. DappRadar Portfolio allows you to see his whole collection, alongside valuations and asset strength calculations. Not only that, you can do the same for any ETH, BSC, or Polygon address. 

DappRadar will continue following the NFT scene. Stay tuned, and don’t fall for pranks worth 100 ETH.

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