Bad actors have taken advantage of a loophole in OpenSea’s stolen NFT policy to sell Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs to unsuspecting collectors. One prominent holder, Franklin, the sixth largest BAYC holder, has claimed that this has happened to him twice in one week.
OpenSea is facing criticism from some BAYC NFT holders as bad actors have exploited the platform’s policies. Franklin tweeted on January 23rd that someone had taken advantage of the marketplace’s stolen NFT policy to sell an NFT from his collection. This is the second time in a week that this has occurred to him.
The attacker made the sale even after the NFT had been marked for suspicious activity and put under review. Franklin stated that the attacker used the “match advanced order” function to mint and sold the NFT to him.
Franklin had previously brought attention to the issue on January 20th, calling for OpenSea to fix the stolen NFT policy, which he deemed as a failure. On that occasion, an NFT had been sold to his OpenSea offer for 65 WETH. He added that “This is just sad and slows everything down. This helps no one.”
Twitter Crypto Community Reactions
This incident has led to backlash from the Twitter community, with ProofOfChaos.eth criticizing OpenSea’s policies and claiming that the platform prioritizes protecting itself from liability and cashing out on royalties over protecting its users.
Another Twitter user, BABIE, implies that individuals should not place their trust solely in centralized marketplaces like OpenSea, and instead sees decentralized networks as the future of the NFT market.
OpenSea has yet to respond to Franklin’s claims, but the issue is gaining attention in the NFT community. Critics have stated that the NFT marketplace has not done enough to address the issue and that the current policy has been largely ineffective in catching stolen NFTs.
History of Open Sea Scams
OpenSea, the leading marketplace for buying and selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has a history of scams and fraud. In the platform’s early days, many high-profile scams were reported in which users were duped into buying fake or stolen NFTs.
One notable incident occurred in 2019 when a user was scammed out of $38,000 worth of Ethereum in a phishing attack. The scammer had created a fake version of the OpenSea website and convinced the user to enter their private key, allowing the scammer to steal the user’s funds.
In another scam reported in 2020, a group of scammers used a smart contract exploit to mint and sell fake NFTs on OpenSea. They could sell these fake NFTs to unsuspecting buyers before the exploit was discovered and fixed.
In December of 2022, an analyst exposed a scam in which a hacker used a gas-less signature feature in Seaport to steal 14 Bored Ape NFTs. The scammer used social engineering tactics to lure the victim to a fake NFT platform, where they were prompted to sign a contract. After signing, the victim’s wallet was emptied.
