Last month, we mapped the NFT Twitter community, which was featured on Yahoo Finance, and shared widely within the community. Today, we’re coming back with another deep-dive into the community. This time, we mapped the Twitter accounts to ENS domains and reviewed token holdings of addresses linked to those ENS domains.
We took a look at how communities from AnChain.AI’s NFT Twitter map fare when compared to actual token holdings, and found the community detection algorithm did quite well in identifying Bored Ape Yacht Club (BYAC)-centric and CryptoPunk-centric communities.
Then we identified a scam, in which more than 40% of the Twitter accounts linked to ENS domains from our NFT Twitter map received airdrops containing fake tokens as part of a phish/hack attempt.
So how are the two connected, if at all? Let’s find out!
Quick Recap
The NFT Twitter map we released last month was effectively bifurcated into collector and artist sections, as can be seen below:
ENS Domains
Of the 1,597 accounts that appear in AnChain.AI’s first NFT Twitter community map, 346 of them include ENS domains (i.e. something with “.eth”) in their Twitter display names:
Collector accounts (221; 26.5%) were 1.6 times more likely than artist accounts (125; 16.4%) to include ENS domains in their Twitter display names:
The determination of colored communities (Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, NFT Gaming/Cryptoart, NFT Artists) is being driven entirely based on the Following and Followers of the 1,597 accounts in relation to the same for the other NFT Twitter accounts. In other words, whether or not Twitter accounts hold a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT was not taken into consideration when classifying the pink community as Bored Ape Yacht Club-centric.
After reviewing the token holdings of addresses linked to the 346 Twitter accounts/ENS domains, however, we can see how our community detection fares when compared to actual token holdings.
Pink: Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)
When looking to token holdings of the 346 ENS domains, 164 Twitter accounts (47%) are linked to addresses that reflect holding BAYC NFTs:
Our community detection did well at identifying the pink community as BAYC-centric. For example, pink community accounts comprise 91 of the 164 Twitter accounts linked to addresses that reflect holding BAYC NFTs (18.5% of pink community accounts reflect holding BAYC NFTs):
Blue: CryptoPunks
When looking to token holdings of the 346 ENS domains, 101 Twitter accounts (29%) are linked to addresses that reflect holding CryptoPunks NFTs:
Our community detection similarly did well at identifying the blue community as CryptoPunks-centric. For example, blue community accounts comprise 48 of the 101 Twitter accounts linked to addresses that reflect holding CryptoPunks NFTs (14% of blue community accounts reflect holding CryptoPunks NFTs):
NFT Whales
With current price floors of 68 ETH and 66.3 ETH, respectively, BAYC and CryptoPunks are representative of the most valuable NFT collections:
When looking to token holdings of the 346 ENS domains, 66 Twitter accounts (19%) are linked to addresses that reflect holding both BAYC and CryptoPunks NFTs:
Collector accounts (48; 5.8%) were 2.4 times more likely than artist accounts (18; 2.4%) to be holding both BAYC and CryptoPunks NFTs:
Here is what those 66 accounts look like after reapplying visual clustering and adding Twitter usernames:
With a combined price floor (BAYC and CryptoPunks) that currently exceeds 134 ETH, these 66 accounts hold some of the more valuable NFT portfolios among the 1,597 accounts in our NFT Twitter community map.
ETH Balance
When looking to token holdings of the 346 ENS domains, 60 Twitter accounts (17%) are linked to addresses that reflect holding at least 10 ETH:
Collector accounts (38; 4.6%) were 1.6 times more likely than artist accounts (22; 2.9%) to be holding at least 10 ETH:
Here is what those 60 accounts look like after reapplying visual clustering and adding Twitter usernames:
And here are 22 accounts (among the 60) that are linked to addresses that reflect holding both BAYC and CryptoPunks NFTs, in addition to a minimum of 10 ETH:
Phish/Hack Token
When looking to token holdings of the 346 ENS domains, 144 Twitter accounts (42%) are linked to addresses that reflect holding akSwap.io ERC-20 tokens:
Collector accounts (89; 10.7%) were 1.5 times more likely than artist accounts (55; 7.2%) to be holding akSwap.io ERC-20 tokens:
Etherscan flags the 0x82dfdb2ec1aa6003ed4acba663403d7c2127ff67 token as “Phish/Hack” and cautions against interacting with this token contract (where akSwap.io ERC-20 tokens originate):
Redditors made note of the scam just hours after it began:
In a tweet that has since been deleted, web3 investor and LinksDAO founder, Mike Dudas, dissects how the fake airdrop scam works:
Something to think about: including an ENS domain as part of one’s Twitter profile can increase vulnerability to these sorts of scams
Emmy Award-winning graphic artist Bryan Brinkman, who emerged as the second most influential account from our NFT Twitter map, was among the 144 Twitter accounts holding the airdropped akSwap.io ERC-20 tokens.
As can be seen below, while Brinkman is very familiar with this flavor of a scam, he was unaware of holding the fake airdrop akSwap.io tokens:
Conclusion
The AnChain.AI team is hard at work developing faster, smarter, deeper, and more responsive smart contract intelligence, cutting detection time for newly-deployed attacks from weeks down to mere hours, and securing Web 3 infrastructure against the ever-adapting threats of blockchain bad actors.
In the meantime, however, the usual steps apply. Check your wallets and absolutely do not touch (swap, trade, or use) any unknown that you didn’t verify, be wary of ‘Free Token’ airdrops, and be wary of posting any identifying information in tandem with your wallet address. After all, as tempting as they may be, sometimes that shiny new airdrop website is a cleverly disguised honeypot, waiting to turn your data into some sticky-fingered vandal’s dark web profit.
If you enjoyed this post, you won’t want to miss our next one — where we will be delving further into phishing + smart contracts via closer examination of fake airdrop scams like akSwap.io, an area where AnChain.AI investigators have noticed a recent and concerning explosion.
Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter @AnChainAI to be notified once we publish our findings!
TL;DR
- NFT Twitter with ENS domains
- NFT Collector accounts are 1.6 times more likely than NFT Artist accounts to include ENS domains in their Twitter profile name
- NFT Collector accounts were 2.4 times more likely than NFT Artist accounts to hold both BAYC and CryptoPunks NFTs
- 47% of the 346 ENS domains hold BAYC NFTs
- 29% of the 346 ENS domains hold CryptoPunks NFTs
- 18.5% of Twitter accounts in the pink BAYC-centric community hold BAYC NFTs
- 14% of Twitter accounts in the blue CryptoPunks community hold CryptoPunks NFTs
- NFT Whale
- Map of 66 Twitter accounts holding some of the most valuable NFT portfolios among the 1,597 accounts in our NFT Twitter community map
- ETH Balance
- Map of 60 Twitter accounts holding at least 10 ETH
- Map of 22 Twitter accounts holding at least 10 ETH and both BAYC and CryptoPunks NFTs
- Phish/Hack Token
- We identified a scam, in which more than 40% of the Twitter accounts linked to ENS domains from our NFT Twitter map received airdrops containing fake tokens (akSwap.io ERC-20) as part of a phish/hack attempt
- NFT Collector accounts were 1.5 times more likely than NFT artist accounts to be holding akSwap.io ERC-20 tokens
- Including an ENS domain as part of one’s Twitter profile can increase vulnerability to these sorts of scams
