Today, in our own pivot, we present our Kramer Award not to the scammed but to the scammers.
How could we pass up the opportunity to honor Heather Morgan, the entrepreneur / rapper who, along with her husband, was recently indicted for trying to launder $4.5b in Bitcoin? No, she didn’t get away with it. And, yes, it’s been correctly pointed out that these clowns are almost certainly not the ones behind the complex Bitfinex cyberattack from back in 2016 — the alleged source of the fake money in question.
After all, this is the woman who once rapped: i’m a motherfucking bad bitch / go on make me a sammich / you annoying like vag itch / so lame it’s fucking tragic. Which, is, indeed, a tragedy, albeit less of the Shakespearean variety and more in the vein of Waiting For Godot. Cleopatra she is not, but operatic downfalls are overrated next to folk heroes such as these. The Netflix miniseries practically writes itself. But who needs it, when we have reality?
Meanwhile, a genuinely honorable mention goes out to @thomasg.eth, who dodged what must’ve been one of the brightest and ballsiest scams I’ve ever come across. His Twitter thread recaps the whole thing in A24-film-worthy detail. But basically, a graphic designer hopped into Thomas’ ‘open-source aircraft’ DAO (whatever the hell that means), spent two weeks giving free work and enthusiastic conversation to the project (and the very lonely man behind it), then brought in a friend impersonating one of the brains behind the Solana-based NFT game Space Falcon to seal the deal.
Now, Tommy is a simple guy who just wants ‘private jets for all the homies’ — the archetypal degen, and perfect everyman protagonist for this sort of thing. Naturally, by touting their connections to Wisk and Boeing, the scammers convinced him to accept an airdropped NFT. Only, this particular generative take on an early ’80s sci fi cover happened to contain code allowing them to access and transfer any and all of his ETH. Luckily for Thom, he adhered to web3 basic strategy and staked it in a fresh wallet, but thanks to some full-on Talented Mr. Ripley style social engineering, mans came damn close to spending the rest of his life in economy class middle seats.
Better for the environment? Sure. But worse for the story. And, on the blockchain, the simple act of not being a total idiot is plenty award-worthy.
