Scammers impersonating generative artist Tyler Hobbs have promoted a fake QQL NFT mint on X, and at least one person has reportedly lost funds after interacting with the scheme.

The warning surfaced on Oct. 20 from Quit, vice president of blockchain at Yuga Labs, who said in a post dated Oct. 19, 2026, that several accounts were posing as Hobbs and falsely claiming that minting for the generative art project had reopened.

“PSA QQL minting has not reopened,” Quit wrote. According to his post, one person’s wallet had already been drained, while another user avoided a similar loss thanks to the Pocket Universe security tool, which simulates pending transactions and flags potentially malicious requests before users sign them.

PSA QQL minting has not reopened. Already aware of one person who got drained and one who would've if not for pocket universe. Scammer is making several accounts impersonating Tyler Hobbs. Please do not interact.

— Quit (@0xQuit) October 19, 6

The reported theft has not been independently verified. No wallet addresses, transaction details, or loss estimates were shared.

Fake Auction Mirrors QQL’s 2022 Launch

Posts on X show the impersonators promoting a Dutch auction of 900 QQL Mint Passes starting at 50 ETH. The messages claimed ties to the original creators, but the project’s official materials list no new auction. In a Dutch auction, the price starts high and declines until buyers absorb the full supply.

The figures match QQL’s genuine launch in September 2022, when Hobbs and co-creator Dandelion Mané sold 900 passes through a Dutch auction that opened at 50 ETH. That sale closed at 14 ETH per pass and sold out in under an hour, raising 12,600 ETH — worth about $16.7 million at the time. Because the fake listing reuses those exact parameters, matching the 2022 numbers is by itself no sign of legitimacy.

QQL allows collectors to explore different outputs from a generative algorithm before choosing one to mint. Each Mint Pass can be used once to create an official NFT, and the pass is burned after use. According to project documentation, Mint Passes do not expire, so existing holders can still mint official artwork. Quit’s warning concerned only the false claim that a new public sale had opened — QQL itself has not resumed public minting.

How the Wallet Drain May Have Worked

Quit’s post did not name the fake accounts or include screenshots, and it did not specify whether the victim visited a fake website, approved a malicious contract, or signed another type of request.

Comparable tactics are well documented. In an August 2023 advisory, the FBI warned that criminals pose as NFT developers to steal crypto, at times by creating lookalike social media accounts or taking over real ones. Such posts often manufacture a sense of urgency and steer victims toward fake websites; once a wallet is connected users may approve transactions that allow malicious contracts to move their assets.

Similar methods have surfaced in other recent incidents. On Oct. 5, security firm Salus flagged malicious USDG approvals linked to Revenue, in which funds were moved in the same transaction that granted permission. Some approvals remain active until the wallet owner revokes them, which can let a contract move assets long after the initial interaction. Tools such as Etherscan’s token approval checker let wallet owners review and revoke outstanding approvals.

Verifying Genuine QQL Mint Passes

In generative art NFTs, provenance — the verifiable link between an output and its official contract — is what separates an authentic work from a counterfeit. QQL’s documentation lists the official Mint Pass contract as 0xc73B17179Bf0C59cD5860Bb25247D1D1092c1088. Prospective buyers can check this address on Etherscan, a public Ethereum block explorer, before purchasing passes on secondary markets. The project also cautions that counterfeit Mint Pass collections exist.

As of publication, it remains unclear exactly how the reported attack unfolded. Any future mint announcement circulating on X can be checked against the same references: the official contract address and the project’s documentation, along with the confirmation that QQL has not resumed public minting.

This report was first published by Blockonomi.