NBA Top Shot NFT scam promoted by hacked ESPN reporter’s X / Twitter account

NFT scams are not all that unusual on Elon Musk’s X. Neither are high-profile accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, getting hacked.

However, it’s not everyday that an ESPN reporter with millions of followers gets hacked by a scammer looking to trick users of arguably the most mainstream NFT project into giving them access to their crypto wallets.

On Saturday evening, ESPN Senior NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski’s account on X published a post linking to a “free NFT pack” for NBA Top Shot customers who connected their crypto wallet to the platform.

Tweet may have been deleted

“NBA Top Shot, the popular NFT platform, is adding support for the popular Ethereum blockchain,” Wojnarowski’s @wojespn account posted to his more than 6.3 million followers. “In celebration, a free NFT pack is available to all customers, while quantities last.” The post received hundreds of thousands of impressions as well as hundreds of retweets and likes.

The link included in the post sent users to the URL “nbatopshot dot org.” where users were prompted to connect their crypto wallet in order to gain access to the supposed “free NFT pack.”

One problem for those who clicked the link, however: The giveaway was not real. NBA Top Shot’s official domain is “nbatopshot dot com” not “dot org.” Wojnarowski’s X account was compromised. 

The official NBA Top Shot account posted a disclaimer, warning users about the scam about an hour after the initial scam post.

Tweet may have been deleted

“There is NO Free Airdrop happening on NBA Top Shot at this time,” the @NBATopShot account posted. “Please be careful and always double check links. The only official NBA Top Shot site is https://nbatopshot.com. Thank you.”

An airdrop is a common promotional tactic found in the crypto space where projects will reward users with freebies like tokens or NFTs after they invest in the project or connect their crypto wallets to a platform. The practice has also been commonly weaponized by scammers looking to drain users’ crypto wallets of funds or assets with the newfound permissions granted by a user after connecting their account.

NBA Top Shot was one of the hottest NFT projects of the crypto boom of the early 2020s. The officially licensed NFT project allowed users to buy, sell, and trade their favorite NBA highlights.

However, as The Verge points out, NBA Top Shot, like all NFTs, have taken a huge popularity hit in recent years. According to Cryptoslam.io, which tracks NFT sales, NBA Top Shot only had around 8,100 unique sellers and 5,550 unique buyers in January 2024. This is way down from the NBA Top Shot market’s peak in March 2021 where it had nearly 400,000 buyers.

High-profile hacked accounts, like Wojnarowski’s, are becoming much too common on Elon Musk’s X. Mashable has previously reported on the proliferation of hacked accounts belonging to celebrity users, such as the hacker who promotes the “10 MacBooks” scam.

Celebrities like Anya Taylor-Joy and LeVar Burton have had their X accounts stolen and then used by the hacker to try and bilk their followers out of money. Oftentimes, these accounts are stolen by hackers impersonating official X company accounts or employees, who then socially engineer users into giving them their account information.

It’s unclear how many users, if any, fell for the NBA Top Shot NFT air drop scam. The post on Wojnarowski’s account has since been removed.