Mark Cuban Loses Over $870K In MetaMask Hack: 'Someone Got Me For 5 ETH'

Billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, has fallen victim to a cryptocurrency scam, resulting in a loss of approximately $870,000. 

What Happened: When approached by DL News, Cuban, on Friday, said that he was unaware of the wallet movements and revealed that he had lost 5 Ethereum ETH, equivalent to around $8,175 at current prices. 

“Someone got me for 5 ETH. I went on MetaMask for the first time in months. They must have been watching,” Cuban told DL News when approached about the sudden movements in a wallet marked as “Mark Cuban 2” on the blockchain explorer, EtherScan.

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Why It Matters: Cuban’s total losses reportedly extended beyond 5 Ether, amounting to approximately $870,000 spread across 10 different cryptocurrencies. Notable assets that were stolen included a variety of stablecoins and various tokens such as Lido staked Ether, SuperRare, and Ethereum Name Service.

“I’m pretty sure I downloaded a version of MetaMask with some s**t in it,” Cuban speculated. He explained that he had been searching for Circle on Google, not MetaMask, and that the fraudulent MetaMask may have provided a gateway for the scammers to obtain his private keys or seed phrases, enabling them to drain his cryptocurrency wallets. 

Cuban described the incident, stating, “MetaMask crashed a couple times. I just stopped. Then you emailed me. So I locked my NFTs on OpenSea. Transferred all my Polygon in the account.”

According to Cuban, he successfully transferred his remaining assets to Coinbase using "the dongle that Coinbase uses for authentication."

The initial discovery of the hack was made by blockchain investigator Wazz, who identified suspicious behavior in one of Cuban’s wallets that the entrepreneur had not interacted with for several months.

Price Action: At the time of writing, ETH was trading at $1635, up 0.49% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.

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