- A buyer labeled “opportunistic” has snapped up cheap NFTs on OpenSea
- The buyer took advantage of a misunderstanding by OpenSea users to save hundreds of thousands of dollars
- Holders thought they had canceled their listings but they were still able to be filled
A buyer labelled “opportunistic” yesterday managed to snap up three Bored Ape NFTs on OpenSea for a fraction of their true value. The user seems to have taken advantage of a quirk in the way that the likes of OpenSea and Rarible deal with canceled listings to snap up three Bored Apes, two Mutant Ape NFTs, a Cool Cats NFT, and a CyberKongz NFT at big discounts. If all are sold at the floor price, the buyer stands to make over $730,000.
Lucky Buyer Discovers OpenSea Exploit
The buyer, who goes by the name Jpegdegenlove, caught the attention of the NFT world when the holder of BAYC #9991 tweeted that he had “lost” the treasured NFT:
I just lost an ape guys…. I’m crying…. How did this just happen????😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
— TBALLER.eth (@T_BALLER6) January 24, 2022
In fact the NFT had been sold, but for just 0.77 ETH ($1,700), well below the Bored Ape floor price which currently stands at 86 ETH ($211,000). Jpegdegenlove had seemingly discovered an exploit within OpenSea that allowed them to snap up numerous prized possessions at a fraction of their market value, doing the same with BAYC #8924 which went for 6.66 ETH ($14,500) and BAYC #8274 which changed hands for just short of 23 ETH ($50,600).
When Canceled Doesn’t Mean Canceled
The exploit that Jpegdegenlove used concerned the improper canceling or listings on OpenSea, an issue that was detected almost a month ago by a Twitter user:
1/ Recently there’s been an @opensea exploit that has allowed for assets to be purchased at greatly discounted prices, including 3 freshdrops passes, a BAYC https://t.co/8pEgeXkOBo, multiple MAYCs, and more. I did some research this morning and here’s what’s happening -> a 🧵👇
— cap10bad.ΞTH | freshdrops.io (@cap10bad) December 31, 2021
In summary, when an OpenSea listing is canceled a fee is levied. This fee can be quite high, especially if the asking price has been consistently lowered prior to the cancelation. Some users tried to get around this by transferring the NFT to another wallet which they thought effectively canceled the listing, but the OpenSea API doesn’t see it this way – it still reports the items as able to be purchased, even though the owner has tried to withdraw them from sale.
Jpegdegenlove was able to view this list of buyable NFTs on Rarible using OpenSea’s API, where they discovered the cheap treasure trove. It seems then that in trying to avoid a cancelation fee, the owners of these NFTs may have paid much more in lost gains.
The buyer of course did nothing wrong, but the wallet used to buy the reduced NFTs has been labelled “OpenSea opportunistic buyer” by Etherscan.
