Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
A bug in OpenSea, the popular NFT marketplace, has let hackers buy rare NFTs for well below market value, in some cases leading to hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses for the original owners — and hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for the apparent thieves.
The bug appears to have been present for weeks and seems to be referenced in at least one tweet from January 1st, 2022. But exploitation of the bug has picked up significantly in the past day: blockchain analytics company Elliptic reported that in a 12-hour stretch before the morning of January 24th, it was exploited at least eight times to “steal” NFTs with a market value of over $1 million.
One of the NFTs, Bored Ape Yacht Club #9991, was purchased using the exploit…
