As free mints for NFTs have recently taken over the space, free mint scams have become the NFT crime of the day. People in the NFT industry are excited about the possibility of winning the lottery for the next Goblintown. How can you tell if an NFT project really is legitimate or just a scam? Keep reading to learn how you can stay safe.
What is the free mint NFT scam?
Firstly, let’s talk about free mints. This is the major trend that is growing due to the current NFT bear markets. This is because most of the new NFT projects have required people to mint pieces from a particular collection. Although prices may vary, they generally fall within the 0. 05 to 0. 25 ETH range. Of course, this wasn’t always true. As a matter of fact, the NFT PFP collection that started this craze, CryptoPunks, was famously a free mint. However, now that cryptocurrencies are down across the board and interest in buying NFTs has fallen massively, free mints are back in fashion in the NFT space.
Most notably over the past few weeks is the case of Goblintown.wtf. The Goblins are without a doubt the biggest NFT story of late, and were free to mint. The project now sits at a lofty floor price of 5.8 ETH, and has seen a secondary trade volume of about 31K ETH.
Unfortunately, whenever an NFT project skyrockets to success, the scammers always follow. Free mints are a popular scam. There are many scams out there claiming to offer free mints for NFT collections.
These scams use the same malicious smart contracts that we have seen in many Discord scams. This means that instead of minting an NFT, unsuspecting NFT owners are unknowingly giving their NFTs away to scammers. A Mutant Ape holder lost his Otherdeed and a Koda.
How to know if an NFT mint is legit
When it comes to avoiding free mint NFT scams, it’s very important to be able to navigate NFT smart contracts. It is important to be able to identify basic functions and their meanings in order to distinguish a legitimate NFT project from one that will drain your wallet.
Of course, keeping your valuable NFTs in a hardware wallet that you never use to mint is a tip that many people in the NFT space implore people to listen to. You can have a separate wallet that has a small amount of ETH, especially when you are talking about free mints. This will ensure that your assets are not lost to scam contracts for fake NFT mints.
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This article is educational material.
As always, make your own research prior to making any kind of investment.
