A Daft Punk hobby artist has fallen victim to the dark side of the NFT gold rush.
The artist, who works under the pseudonym sodasprouts, had created bespoke digital artwork depicting Daft Punk to promote “One More Time,” a charitable fanzine dedicated to the legendary electronic music duo. However, she claims her work was stolen and subsequently sold as an NFT for $12,000 worth of cryptocurrency.
All profits from the zine benefit The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for the LGBTQ+ community.
“That’s $12,000 that could have gone to charity, $12,000 that could have paid for my spring semester of college or that could have gone to rent,” sodasprouts tweeted. “I’m sure more has been stolen.”
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Digital art theft has become a cause for concern in the convoluted and at times bizarre crypto epoch. The advent of non-fungible tokens has allowed legions of hackers to hop on the gravy train, like back in March, when it was revealed that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tokenized art was stolen on the popular NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway.
And with no ostensible regulations in place, there’s not much victims can do about it. sodasprouts managed to locate the purported buyer of her stolen Daft Punk art, but she says the person promptly blocked her. The operators of the “One More Time” zine tried to get in contact as well, but to no avail.
sodasprouts alluded to seeking legal action against the digital bandit, but has not yet overtly announced plans to do so. In the aftermath of the heist, she created and shared a short guide for artists to protect themselves from digital art larceny, which you can read below.
