A fake Banksy NFT sold for more than $300,000

The website of street artist Banksy briefly directed users to an auction for a work of digital art that sold for more than $300,000. The problem? It wasn’t authentic. A web page added to Banksy’s website Tuesday showed an image with an avatar resembling one of the many popular NFT collectibles known as CryptoPunks.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique crypto tokens that are designed to represent ownership of a rare digital item, like art or sports memorabilia. Sales of such digital assets have surged to record highs this year thanks to rising interest in both cryptocurrencies and collectible items.

You can think of an NFT as a digital receipt of ownership. Buyers of the tokens effectively hold a certificate of authenticity to say they own the original item — but that doesn’t grant them copyright, and the media can still be viewed for free by other internet users.

Anyone who clicked on the Banksy NFT web page Tuesday would be directed to a link for an auction for a collectible called “Great Redistribution of the Climate Change Disaster.” The page was added to Banksy’s site Tuesday morning and later deleted, stoking speculation that the site may have been hacked.

A fake Banksy NFT sold for more than $300,000. Then the buyer got his money back, CNBC, Sep 2