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- It isn’t clear for now how the hackers managed to exploit the security flaw but OpenSea has frozen trading for the 15 NFTs stolen.
- OpenSea’s security flaws have forced the community to question security and the decentralization of the platform.
In one of yet another unfortunate event, hackers managed to steal 15 of the popular Bored Ape NFTs from the Ethereum-based NFT marketplace OpenSea. As per Todd Kramer, the owner of the NFTs, the hacker has stolen a total of 15 apes and mutants.
Just to give context, the total value of all these NFTs combined was a staggering $2.2 million. These NFTs on the OpenSea marketplace now have a warning that says it is “reported for suspicious activity”. Besides, the OpenSea marketplace has also suspended buying and selling of these NFTs. Owner Todd Kramer has listed all the NFTs that were vulnerable to this attack. He also called this incident “arguably the worst night” of his life.
@NFTX_ these apes and mutants have been stolen and flagged on @opensea please remove from your liquidiry pool
Ape 2771
Ape 6416
Ape 1623
Ape 1708
Ape 8214
Ape 7528
Ape 9988
Ape 9410Mutants 25057
Mutant 11177
Mutant 28752
Mutant 24718
Mutant 2436
Mutant 9278
Mutant 2434— toddkramer.eth (@toddkramer1) December 30, 2021
Bored Ape NFTs have created a storm while contributing millions in NFT trading volumes. They have also been the most popular NFTs on the OpenSea NFT marketplace. However, it’s the first time wherein hackers have stolen NFTs from a major collection and drawn serious concerns about security.
However, with OpenSea freezing the transactions, the community has also questioned the decentralization of these NFTs. One of the anonymous users also called this move ‘anti-crypto’. A Twitter account handle that goes by the name Forculus writes:
Who was able to freeze the nfts? Feels pretty anti crypto to be asking third parties to do this and ideally they shouldn’t be able to. This was just extremely poor opsec on your part. True decentralized ownership no one should be able to step in. Good luck.
OpenSea bans Phuky Ape Yacht Club
While OpenSea struggles with its own security issues, it has also entered a squabble over the approval of the Phunky Ape Yacht Club (PAYC) on its platform. The NFT platform also banned this NFT series since it has been based on the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).
PAYC has been very much identical to the Bored Ape NFTs with the only change that it’s mirrored. The copying of these NFTs has also led to community discussion surrounding the plagiarism of non-fungible tokens. However, banning something again raises the question of having a truly decentralized marketplace. In the meanwhile, PAYC has also built a strong community of followers. Thus, it shall be interesting to see how far this goes.
Back in October 2021, we reported that OpenSea has some basic security flaws that leave its wallets open to attack by hackers. The researchers at Check Point Software stated that the vulnerability allowed hackers to steal users’ entire crypto wallets.
