'Someone Got Me': Shark Tank Star Mark Cuban Loses Small Fortune After Heist Clears Out His Account
If you’re a Dallas Mavericks fan, and have concerns that Mark Cuban isn’t willing to spend the money he should on the team … you may want to avert your eyes.
Cuban, the Mavs team owner and also a “shark” on the investment reality show “Shark Tank,” recently revealed that he was the victim of a cryptocurrency scam.
And while the amount of money he lost — approximately $870,000, according to the cryptocurrency site DL News — isn’t especially hurtful to a billionaire, it’s a sizable chunk of fortune to have stolen.
Cuban told DL News that “someone got me for 5 eth,” referring to Ether, a type of cryptocurrency.
According to DL News, five Ether is worth about $9,000.
The other $861,000 worth of losses came across another nine different types of cryptocurrency.
Lmao, did Mark Cuban’s wallet just get drained?
Wallet inactive for 160 days and all assets just moved pic.twitter.com/vWnMZFyHB5
— Wazz (@WazzCrypto) September 15, 2023
When observers noticed some strange activity in Cuban’s cryptocurrency portfolio, the loquacious Dallas Mavericks owner discovered the fraud after not using the platform for a period.
“I went on MetaMask for the first time in months,” Cuban told DL News.
(MetaMask is, grossly simplified, a sort of digital “wallet” for digital cryptocurrency.)
Cuban added that hackers “must have been watching” his cryptocurrency accounts.
The 65-year-old celebrity entrepreneur appeared to lay the blame for the digital heist at the feet of MetaMask.
“I’m pretty sure I downloaded a version of MetaMask with some s*** in it,” Cuban said.
According to DL News, “Many fraudsters create fake MetaMask extensions or applications, tricking users into providing their private keys or seed phrases. Once these malicious actors gain access, they can easily drain users’ cryptocurrency wallets.”
Cuban did note that much of the potential damage was mitigated.
“Since I was only working with the account that got hacked, none of my others gave up anything,” he told DL News.
Much to the chagrin of cryptocurrency users, this has been the second high-profile cryptocurrency scam this month.
On Sept. 6, the FBI put out an official release connecting a North Korean hacker group to a whopping $41 million heist from an online casino that specializes in cryptocurrency.
And if there was any doubt about the lucrative nature of cryptocurrency crime, the FBI warned that this hacker group has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars.
“These same DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea] actors are also responsible for several other high-profile international virtual currency heists. In 2023 alone, DPRK cyber actors have stolen more than $200 million,” the FBI stated in its release.
The FBI added: “This amount includes, but is not limited to, approximately $60 million of virtual currency from Alphapo and CoinsPaid on or about July 22, 2023, and approximately $100 million of virtual currency from Atomic Wallet on or about June 2, 2023.”
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