NFT Trader’s $1.5 Million Robot Chess Move
YouTuber and non-fungible token (NFT) trader Hanwe Chang said he scored 800 Ether (ETH), or about $1.5 million, by tricking a rival trader’s bot into buying his own inflated NFTs.
In an Aug. 5 X (Twitter) post, Chang said he noticed that a bot was copying his offers on the NFT Blur marketplace and decided to trick them.
An NFT-focused account, A Raving Ape, speculated that from a separate, anonymous wallet, Chang purchased multiple Azuki NFTs that shared the same background color.
Context on how @HanweChang executed a plan perfectly and earned 800e by selling “Off White A – Background color” azuki at 50e each and azuki elementals at 15e each.
This is an epic case of PvP in today’s NFT trading market ⚔️
Hanwe rubbed shoulders with the top spot in… pic.twitter.com/M8Ujm8CquJ
— A-Raving-Ape.eth (@a_raving_ape) August 5, 2023
Knowing that the bots were copying his trades, Chang placed an inflated bid on the NFTs held in his anonymous wallet from his publicly known hanwe.eth wallet.
Once a bot automatically copied the inflated offer, Chang accepted it from his anonymous wallet and was able to withdraw the NFTs at a significant markup.
Apparently, the owner of the bot known as elizab.eth responded to Chang’s message claiming that the funds were stolen and offered to discuss a 10% bounty if the funds were returned.
We would like to discuss a premium with you. We offer a 10% bounty on all funds stolen from our bot, which you can keep if you return the remaining 90%.
— elisab.eth ᅠᅠ (@ThinkingETH) August 5, 2023
Chang’s chain move has sparked a discussion about its legality.
Lawyer Gabriel Shapiro said he thinks elizab.eth “might have a good legal case” to recover his ETH from Chang’s trick – but only if he hires a litigation attorney.
NFT volumes nearly halved in July
NFT volumes have continued to fall in the ongoing bear market, after falling nearly in half in July.
Figures from data aggregator NFT CryptoSlam show US dollar sales volume was down nearly 42% from July, with the month starting with $22 million in daily volume before dropping to 12.8 million dollars on July 31.
The July decline comes after a significant rally in late June, where daily sales volumes peaked at nearly $58.5 million on June 27, the biggest trading day since the $61.9 million figure. of March 16.
NFT royalties are also biting creators. A July 25 report from Nansen said that of the 699,816 ETH in royalties paid to NFT projects, only 9.4% of the figure was for the first half of 2023.
Nansen said the effective royalty rate for royalties has seen a significant downward trend – average royalties in 2022 were 2.5% which by July 2023 had fallen to 0.6%, a drop of 98%.
Slow month for NFT flights
On the other hand, NFT related flights had their slowest month in 2023.
Figures from blockchain security firm PeckShield shared on August 6 show around $1.7 million worth of NFTs were stolen in July. The figure marks a 31% drop from June.
PeckShield said half of stolen NFTs were sold within three hours, or 165 minutes, on marketplaces such as Blur and OpenSea of being caught.
#PeckShieldAlert In July 2023, ~$1.73 M of #NFT were stolen, marking a 31% decrease from the previous month. Within 165 minutes, half of the stolen NFTs were quickly sold in various markets. The percentage of stolen NFTs originally sold on @blur_io… pic.twitter.com/cknsefpfwe
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 6, 2023
Blur had the highest number of stolen NFTs sold, with over 67% while OpenSea had just under 20% sold through its platform, PeckShield claimed.
Just over $41.5 million worth of NFTs were stolen in 2023 through the end of July. February was the biggest month for NFT thieves, where they stole $16.2 million worth of tokens.
Gary Vee’s NFT project also enters the sneaker trend
VeeFriend’s, the NFT project of entrepreneur and internet leader Gary Vaynerchuck has joined the latest NFT-related sneaker craze.
On August 4, VeeFriend’s announced their partnership with Reebok to release a limited-edition sneaker only available to those who hold an alpaca-related NFT as part of the collection.
Dreamers, let’s do it. We are proud to present the VeeFriends x @reebok Aspiring Alpaca Classic Nylon, the shoe that will take you wherever you aspire to go. pic.twitter.com/DHsvMdHPGR
— VeeFriends (@veefriends) August 3, 2023
The shoe looks like any other except for a few changes. The tongue of the shoe depicts VeeFriend’s original hand-drawn version of the NFT Alpaca and the NFT project logo appears in place of Reebok’s.
Related: NFT Gas Usage Shows Downtrend, Signals Shift in Landscape
This is the third sneaker-NFT project in recent weeks. At the end of June, Dior launched a new range of trainers offering an NFT replica and the NFTs were incorporated into Puma’s recent trainer collection.
Other interesting news
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) finally figured out that the criminals were hijacking social media accounts and impersonating legitimate figures in the NFT and crypto space, issuing a warning about the trend on August 4.
NFT Protocol JPEG’d confirmed that 5,495 ETH worth around $10 million was returned by hacker Curve Finance, who received a bounty of 610.6 ETH, or $1.1 million .
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