GTA 6 leaker faces having their real identity exposed after crypto mistake
The world of gaming was stunned this week by CyberLeek – an anonymous individual who did the impossible and began leaking footage from GTA 6 – yet despite pulling off this herculean feat, the leaker appears to have made a critical error that leaves their identity potentially exposed.
Discover by a fan no less, it was revealed that the cryptocurrency platform CyberLeek has used to host his dedicated coin is subject to 'know your customer' (KYC) verification rules, which could allow law enforcement to extract the leaker's identity using a subpoena.
As reported by IGN, this was miraculously orchestrated by a user named 'Vice Cit', who shared their findings on the GTAForums and left the gaming world somehow even more shocked than they had been following the initial leaks.
Not only does this put the anonymous identity of the leaker under jeopardy, leaving them open to potentially significant legal action from Rockstar Games, but it also calls into question the motivations of CyberLeek altogether, who had shared a manifesto aiming to rectify the 'anti-consumer' practices of the GTA 6 developer and other prominent publishers in the games industry.
How CyberLeek's identity might be uncovered
Vice Cit, who claims to have experience in digital forensics from their degree, began by searching the dark web – specifically the forum 'Dread' where leaks were first shared before hitting the wider internet – to no avail.
Advert
It was only then that a lightbulb sparked in their mind drawing them to a potential paper trail from the cryptocurrency that CyberLeek was repeatedly pushing in each new clip, and everything started to fall into place.
"What I found was a wallet at the center of all of this," Vice Cit explains. "The website, the wallet that supplied the SOL used to create the crypto, and the Solana public key that matches the signing key used for the Arweave uploads.
"But that's not all I found, the crypto that funded all of this can be traced back to a well-known exchange that requires KYC verification. Which means whoever funded all of this had to submit documents verifying their identity that the authorities can subpoena the exchange for."
Considering the fact that CyberLeek effectively confirmed that they themselves were playing a build of the game, as opposed to sourcing clips from elsewhere, it could very well turn into a case involving digital theft, hacking, copyright infringement, and maybe even extortion considering the demands for crypto payments.
How much money has CyberLeek made from the GTA 6 leaks?
What we can also see now that Vice Cit has located the source of the crypto is how much money CyberLeek has made from the coin — which many are speculating is the motivating factor behind the leaks, considering the drip-fed nature of their release.
Not only is the leaker using each and every video to push people onto the coin, aptly named $CYBERLEEK, but they are also encouraging fans to invest by requiring crypto purchases to vote on what clips are leaked next.
Detailing their investigation in a follow-up post, Vice Cit indicated that CyberLeek invested around $29,000 of their own money to create the coin, and is subsequently earning funds from trading fees every time a sale is made between users.
"At the time I'm writing up this post they've made somewhere between $40,000 to $60,000 in just trading fees from people buying and selling the coin, and it's still going," the user explains, and that doesn't take into account any profits that were made from CyberLeek selling their own stock as the price has increased from demand.
"The coin is doing about $2.1 million in trading volume per day, which equates to about $4,400 per day in profit from trading fees every day the leaker keeps this going.
"This is why they've done it the way they have instead of dropping a huge leak on us like the 2022 leak," Vice Cit continued. "They want to keep this going for as long as possible so they can continue to rake in the profit from the trading fees."
In making their ultimatum an apology and action from Rockstar – which, frankly, is never going to happen – CyberLeek effectively allows themselves the option to continue sharing leaks, although that desire for profits might very well be their downfall.
It remains to be seen whether Rockstar will seek (or is currently seeking) legal action for the leaks, but one discovery from a humble GTAForums user might have been the blow that knocks down the entire house of cards behind this significant operation.