According to an investigation conducted by on-chain detective ZachXBT, it appears that the alleged scammer NFT Machine is actually a user known as scaredofboobs. ZachXBT made this claim in his official Telegram channel on December 28th, stating, “X/Twitter User scaredofboobs is a scammer known as NFT Machine.”
NFT Machine was initially an account on X, formerly known as Twitter, and was operated by the founder of OpenFT, a decentralized marketplace project. However, the account was suspended by X for violating its rules. In February 2022, crypto investor Shual revealed that the NFT Machine account was being managed by a doxxed American citizen named Tyler Gaye. LocalToday news, specifically the Colorado section, also reported that Gaye and NFT Machine are one and the same, with Gaye residing in Denver. The source cited by LocalToday is BusinessDen, a Colorado news site.
According to the LocalToday report, investors filed a lawsuit against Gaye, accusing him of orchestrating a fraudulent scheme to raise money and then using it to purchase nonfungible tokens (NFTs) for his personal collection. Gaye allegedly utilized his NFT Machine account to promote OpeNFT, ultimately raising $55,000 from investors. However, instead of creating an NFT marketplace as promised, he misappropriated the funds to buy NFTs for himself, including numerous items from the MoonCats collection.
The report states that investors hired a private investigator to locate Gaye, ultimately leading to the discovery of his home address. Subsequently, they filed a lawsuit against him, seeking the return of their funds along with punitive damages. Gaye failed to appear in court, resulting in a default judgment against him. The court ordered him to repay the investors $55,000, pay an additional $55,000 in damages, and provide $165,000 in punitive damages, totaling $275,000.
Scaredofboobs, the X user in question, is well-known for publishing open-source code related to Solana smart contract development. They are also the developer of Gamegear, a web-based platform offering retro games such as Mega Man, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Dig Dug, and others.
According to ZachXBT’s post on December 18th, Tyler Gaye is indeed the X user scaredofboobs. ZachXBT also alleges that Gaye has failed to repay the investors as ordered by the court and has continued to initiate new cryptocurrency projects, citing ArcadeDAO as one example.
While no evidence was found of the X account scaredofboobs explicitly promoting crypto investments, there are numerous references to open-source Solana projects.
In August, ZachXBT released research indicating that over $13 million worth of cryptocurrency had been stolen in SIM-swap attacks over the previous four months. On December 24th, he deactivated his X account, leading to the creation of fake accounts by impersonators claiming to be him. Although his account has been reactivated, he has not made any posts since December 18th.
It’s worth noting that ZachXBT’s December 28th post exposing scaredofboobs was only shared on Telegram and was not published on X.