Key Takeaways:
- An NFT worth $300k was unintentionally sold for just over $3K (£2,270), less than one-hundredth of its market price.
- Maxnaut, the seller, informed CNet that he had intended to sell Bored Ape number 3,547 for 75 ethereum (ETH), the cryptocurrency used in many NFT exchanges.
- However, during one of the many trades he lists publicly every day, a “lapse of concentration” led him to write in “0.75 ETH” ($2,989) instead.
NFTs from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) are among the most expensive and well-known NFTs available. But, according to CNET, one of them was unintentionally sold for $3,015, despite being worth $300,000.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a limited edition of 10,000 digital art pieces, each with subtle differences.
Max’s fat finger mistake is especially devastating when considering how valuable Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs have become.
Max was said to have bought the NFT on May 30 for 1 ETH (about $2,290) at the time. However, instead of stating the price of the NFT as 75 ETH, which is almost $300,000 today, he listed it as 0.75 ETH.
The transaction, which took place on Saturday, was confirmed by a review of OpenSea.
In an interview with CNET, the holder — Max — claimed that a gap in concentration caused the loss. He says that he lists a lot of things regularly, but this one eluded him for some strange reason.
“It Was A Lapse In Concentration”
He proceeded to say,
“I list a lot of items every day and just wasn’t paying attention properly. I instantly saw the error as my finger clicked the mouse, but a bot sent a transaction with over 8 ETH of gas fees, so it instantly sniped before I could click cancel, and just like that, $250,000 was gone.”
Max claimed to have noticed the problem almost as soon as his finger touched the mouse, but it was too late; he couldn’t even cancel the transaction at the time.
To claim ownership of Max’s error, the lucky buyer had to pay 8.75 Ethereum, or slightly under $35,000 in total.
It was purchased right away. The buyer paid an additional $34,000 to accelerate the transaction and ensure that no one else could buy it before them. The Bored Ape was quickly listed for $248,000. The transaction appears to have been carried out by a bot, which can be programmed to acquire NFTs listed below a given price on behalf of its owners to profit from these specific circumstances.
Similar Fat finger mistakes are becoming more common in the Crypto world:
Over the last few years, numerous headlines have been made about “Fat finger” errors in cryptocurrency trades. In 2019, the company leisurely Tether, a cryptocurrency tied to the US dollar, almost quadrupled its own coin supply when it by chance issued a $5 billion-payment equivalent to the current money. In March, BlockFi meant to send 700 Gemini Greenbacks to a group of customers for $1 each but instead sent out millions of dollars in bitcoin as a replacement. Likewise, a business paid a $24 million payment on a $100,000 transaction in error last month.
-Someone attempted to sell a CryptoPunk NFT for $19 million last month but instead listed it for $19,000.
NFT CryptoPunk #7557 is exceptionally uncommon; it depicts a punk wearing a golden tiara, and only 55 of these “crowned” punks exist in the collection.
The most affordable tiara Punk costs roughly 350 ETH ($1.5 million), and the most recent sale of such an NFT was for 196.69 ETH ($843,000).
Because the Punk was much cheaper than the market, the buyer utilized “flash bots,” sending 3.33 ETH directly to the miner to ensure that the transaction was included in the block right away.
Another mistakenly sold their Bored Ape for $26,000 in August, a blunder quickly capitalized on by someone else. The original owner offered the buyer $50,000 to return the Bored Ape, but the opportunistic buyer instead sold it for $150,000 at the time.
“The industry is so modern, and gross issues are going to happen whether it be your fault or the tech,” Max said. “If you no longer obtain control of the result, neglect and transfer on.”
