The crypto community have been dealt another scare after OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT platform, confirmed 32 NFTs have been stolen.
OpenSea Co-Founder Devin Finzer, who has confirmed the hack.
Surprise, surprise, a highly valuable, unregulated market has found itself in yet another spot of bother after the company confirmed a hacker had stolen NFTs (non-fungible tokens) worth around £1.25 million ($1.7 million).
OpenSea’s co-founder and CEO, Devin Finzer, confirmed the news and the estimated sum on Twitter, saying they believe the attack was carried out via a phishing scam, in which a hacker tricked traders into signing away their NFTs.
In an attempt to cool concern, Finzer added: ‘I know you’re all worried. We’re running an all hands on deck investigation.’ Finzer also denied rumours that the actual stolen sum was $200 million (£147 million).
According to the blockchain analysis company PeckShield, though, at least 254 tokens were stolen as a result of an unknown attack. Finzer has said some of these have since returned.
As per any NFT news, here’s a mandatory explanation as to what they actually are (although, by this point, if you don’t understand, you have to wonder how mainstream they’ll ever actually be).
As far as we can tell, this is a phishing attack. We don’t believe it’s connected to the OpenSea website. It appears 32 users thus far have signed a malicious payload from an attacker, and some of their NFTs were stolen.
— Devin Finzer (dfinzer.eth) (@dfinzer) February 20, 2022
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital certificates that are registered in a blockchain and record ownership of artwork or a collectible.
Some of the most sought-after NFTs sell for millions, which has led to everyone with a bit of money trying to get in on the act, from Justin Bieber to Grimes, Azealia Banks to Eminem.
The issue, which confronts the entire crypto world is the little to no regulation. A recent report released earlier this month, in fact, concluded that millions have been won by hackers, who have hiked-up the price of their NFTs.
The scheme, known as ‘wash trading’, has seen users trade NFTs between accounts to give a falsely large impression of their value.
Whilst the practice is illegal, there is yet to be an enforcement action against anyone found to have been undertaking ‘wash trading’.
