The rise of NFTs has created exciting opportunities for artists and collectors, but it has also attracted scammers. I recently tried to sell an NFT on a new marketplace that promised low fees and access to a large community of buyers. What started as an exciting opportunity quickly turned into a nightmare.

The marketplace required a small fee to mint my NFT, which seemed reasonable. After paying the fee and uploading my artwork, I received an email from someone claiming to be a serious collector interested in purchasing my piece. They offered a significant amount of Ethereum for the NFT, far more than I had expected.

The collector said they needed me to verify my wallet through a link they provided before completing the transaction. Trusting the process, I clicked the link and entered my wallet credentials. Within minutes, I noticed that my wallet had been emptied—not just the NFT I had minted but also all the other tokens I had stored there.

It turned out that the marketplace itself was part of the scam. It was set up to lure artists into minting NFTs and connecting their wallets, giving scammers full access to their funds. I reported the incident but knew there was little chance of recovering what I had lost.

This experience taught me to stick to well-established NFT marketplaces and to be extremely cautious about unsolicited offers. Never click on unknown links or provide wallet credentials to anyone, no matter how legitimate they seem. In the crypto space, skepticism is your best defense.