Fake NFT Rental Yield Scheme: Claiming high daily returns through on-chain rentals, inducing deposits followed by fund lockups and exit scams

Who Gets Targeted

Victims are predominantly urban white-collar workers aged 25 to 50, small and medium-sized individual business owners, and individuals with prior investment experience in stocks or virtual currencies. They generally lack a deep understanding of blockchain and smart contract technology, yet are eager to catch emerging trends. The platform's pitch uses lures such as stable daily returns of 3% to 8%, automatic daily payouts, and low barriers to entry starting from a few hundred yuan, precisely striking the victims' anxiety to turn losses around and their illusions of passive income. Inside the community, fake withdrawal screenshots are shared to create a collective profit-making atmosphere. Victims gradually escalate from tentative investments to heavy positioning, and some even borrow money to increase their stakes, only realizing they have been scammed when the platform suddenly restricts withdrawals and customer service loses contact.

骗局怎么运作

• The platform packages itself as a decentralized NFT rental protocol or on-chain item rental marketplace, forging whitepapers, smart contract addresses, and on-chain interaction records. It claims that users who purchase platform NFTs can automatically rent them out to gamers to earn stable daily returns, typically anchoring the pitch at 3% to 8% daily returns to attract new users into depositing funds.
• The operators register shell companies overseas and build mock exchange platforms. On the Android side, standalone installation packages are distributed through unofficial channels, making them unsearchable on compliant app stores. New users must register using community-exclusive invitation codes and complete their first deposit, thereby evading regulatory scrutiny and constructing a closed-loop information dissemination circuit.
• In the early stages, small withdrawals are genuinely processed, and community shills release forged receipt screenshots and yield leaderboards. At the same time, an eight-tier rebate system and team hierarchy are introduced, requiring veteran users to continuously recruit new members to upgrade nodes and increase daily earnings, forming a typical closed-loop Ponzi fund pool.
• When the growth rate of incoming funds slows down or large withdrawal requests increase, the platform stages fractional account freezes under the guise of system upgrades, on-chain congestion, compliance reviews, or smart contract anomalies. It then rolls out retention pitches such as lockup interest hikes or purchasing higher-tier NFTs for priority unfreezing to execute secondary harvesting, inducing some victims to continue pouring in funds.
• Ultimately, the operators transfer the on-chain funds within a short timeframe and shut down the frontend entry points. Communities are disbanded, customer service loses contact, and the official website turns into a blank page or redirects to unrelated content. Afterward, some platforms rebrand their names and interfaces, continuing to solicit new users with the same set of code and pitches, forming a continuous skin-swapping harvesting chain.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Claims that NFT rentals can generate fixed daily returns significantly higher than mainstream DeFi protocol levels, yet fails to show real rental counterparties and settlement records on any mainstream block explorer.
• 🚩 Registration requires an exclusive invitation code or referral link, making platform entry points unsearchable via standard search engines and app stores, while both platform servers and company registrations are located overseas.
• 🚩 Withdrawal rules change frequently, imposing thresholds such as minimum withdrawal amounts, daily withdrawal limits, and requirements to invite a certain number of people to unlock funds, with arrival times gradually extending from a few hours to several days.
• 🚩 Large volumes of yield leaderboards and receipt screenshots are published in the community, yet the platform cannot provide any independently verifiable on-chain contract audit reports or certification documents issued by third-party security institutions.
• 🚩 The platform continuously changes its brand name and website domain. Shortly after the original brand stops services, a new platform with highly similar interfaces and pitches emerges, and customer service from the old platform directly guides users to migrate to the new platform.

真实案例

• According to an in-depth report by CNR on July 14, 2025, a platform named Metaverse Farm used virtual farm NFT rentals as its core selling point, claiming that users purchasing virtual land and crops could have the platform rent them out on their behalf to earn fixed daily returns. Initial promises offered about 4% daily returns, later raised to 6% with requirements to renew upgrades. Numerous investors poured anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan into the platform before it abruptly halted withdrawals and lost contact. Journalistic investigations revealed its operating entity to be an overseas shell company.
• According to disclosures by Panxun News, the United Intelligent Computing Center built a fund scheme under the guise of AI computing power托管 (hosting) dividends, claiming users renting computing power NFTs would receive daily dividends. Registered members grew to approximately 110,000 in a short time, with operators accumulating over 100 million yuan in funds. Starting in the second half of 2024, the platform halted withdrawals citing system maintenance, and subsequently closed all website and community entry points, leaving numerous victims with no recourse to recover their rights.
• According to announcements by the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau and various financial media reports, the Zhongshengming Quantitative platform attracted investors using AI wealth management combined with virtual asset leasing pitches, claiming that purchasing platform asset management NFTs yielded daily returns credited daily. The involved amount is estimated to exceed 300 million yuan. In 2024, the Shenzhen public security authorities formally filed a criminal investigation against the operating entity on suspicion of illegal absorption of public deposits, and multiple executives were subjected to criminal coercive measures.

Official Stance

• On September 24, 2021, the People's Bank of China and ten other departments jointly issued the Notice on Further Preventing and Disposing of Risks in Virtual Currency Trading and Speculation, clarifying that virtual currency-related business activities constitute illegal financial activities, and conducting related services domestically is suspected of being illegal.
• In April 2022, the National Internet Finance Association of China, the China Banking Association, and the Securities Association of China jointly issued the Initiative on Preventing Financial Risks Related to NFTs, reminding consumers not to participate in irregular financial speculation involving NFTs, and to be vigilant against financing projects disguised under the name of NFTs.
• Since 2024, public security economic investigation departments in various regions have successively released risk warnings via official WeChat public accounts, naming Ponzi fund schemes under the names of the metaverse, cloud farming, computing power leasing, and NFT dividends, reminding the public to be alert to investment traps with abnormally high daily returns.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Verify platform entity information through official channels by checking the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System to see if the operating company exists and whether registered capital has been paid in. If the platform claims to be an on-chain protocol, demand a smart contract audit report issued by a reputable security institution and independently verify the contract address on a block explorer, while simultaneously checking shareholder paid-in records and administrative penalty disclosures.
• ✅ Maintain a high level of alertness toward any project claiming a daily return rate exceeding 1% with a payback period shorter than one month. Do not blindly trust receipt screenshots and leaderboards published in communities; request the platform provide transaction hashes to independently verify on block explorers.
• ✅ Never install investment-related software packages from unknown sources outside of app stores using exclusive invitation codes. Do not transfer funds to personal accounts or unofficial deposit addresses. The initial test investment amount should be kept within a tolerable loss range, and a withdrawal test should be initiated immediately upon receiving returns to verify arrival speed.
• ✅ Once the platform experiences withdrawal delays, slower customer service replies, or requests for paid upgrades under the guise of system upgrades, immediately stop adding funds, completely preserve deposit records, chat screenshots, transaction hashes, and platform announcements, and report the case to the economic investigation department of the local public security organs or submit clues through the National Anti-Fraud Center.