How to Avoid Buying Stolen NFTs

Recent verification tools and common sense are your best defense against knock-off NFTs.

The popularity and demand of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) continues to advance this year as the largest NFT marketplace in the world, Opensea, recorded single-month sales of more than $5 billion in January. According to Activate Consulting, NFT sales should advance well into 2022, as 94% of previous NFT customers say they are somewhat or very interested in buying an NFT in the next 12 months, as do 42% of those who haven’t yet bought one.

However, there's the real possibility of people selling unauthorized copies or fake NFTs. Whether you're new to the cryptocurrency space or a grizzled crypto veteran, here are some common-sense tips and useful tools to consider to help ensure you're buying an authentic NFT.

Ways to confirm an NFT prospect is genuine

The adage, "Common sense is not so common," tends to be true when it comes to NFTs. People can get overcome by emotions and listen to overhyped NFT pitches from pro-athletes and celebrities, get swept up in the euphoria of instant NFT riches, or pile in based solely on the fear of missing out on a "scarce" NFT offering. Here are some basic steps to help dial down the emotional drama and help make informed decisions.

• Every NFT is supposed to be unique. At a minimum, check out if the NFT you're interested in is being sold on other marketplaces. If it is, your safest bet is to move on because that means the seller is listing multiple copies; that's a red flag.
• Conduct a Google reverse-image search. This is an easy way to see if there are any other variations of the image out there and possibly gain insight into how long it's been available.
• Search the seller's name and the NFTs name on Twitter and Reddit to see if anyone has flagged or complained about either. This is useful because burned buyers have little recourse and typically turn to social media to name bad actors and projects.
• Check out the social media profiles of the current seller and/or original creator to help determine the NFT's "origin story" and whether it's been talked about in the past prior to previous sales, and to get a sense if the originator is an actual artist.

Two useful NFT verification tools

While checking out the seller and creator on social media, pay special attention to their respective profile pictures on Twitter. Earlier this year, Twitter rolled out its own NFT verification service that enables users of its social media platform to upload NFTs for verification by Twitter. Once approved, the Twitter user can upload the authenticated NFT as their official profile image.

How does that help a prospective buyer? More and more NFT owners are "flexing" -- or showing off -- their NFTs by publicly posting them in this way. The Twitter posting feature assures all viewers that the profile image was authenticated by Twitter's NFT solution. So if you see a seller or creator with the NFT you're interested in buying featured as their Twitter profile, that's a pretty good indicator it's legit.

Another nifty NFT vetting check comes from Adobe, which launched its Content Credentials feature last October. It enables collectors to confirm that the wallet used to create an asset was indeed the same one used to mint the NFT asset, so it couldn't be faked. Specifically, the Adobe announcement says that digital artists can add their social media profiles and wallet addresses to the metadata of an NFT artwork before it's completed and downloaded from Adobe photoshop, allowing creators to bake verification into the asset.

The company's announcement stated that it has partnered with the largest NFT marketplaces to provide the "Content Credentials" indicator on authenticated, eligible NFTs listed on Rarible, OpenSea, SuperRare, and KnownOrigin. So anxious buyers may only want to consider purchasing NFTs that have the Content Credentials callout box in the asset's listing description.

This article is not financial advice, and as with any speculative investment, be sure to do your own research and don't risk more money than you can afford to lose. Hopefully these tips and tools can boost your confidence and interest in exploring NFTs safely.