Bored Ape Yacht Club mistake: In the traditional finance world, trusted third parties not only help facilitate transactions, but they will also step in to save you if your credit card gets stolen or you deposit funds into the wrong account. In the world of crypto, not so much. There is no intermediary and if you make a mistake, it’s all on you. There’s plenty of examples, but let’s talk about one that cost a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT trader US$270,000.
Bored Ape Yacht Club, an NFT dynasty
It’s well known that the BAYC is one of the most prestigious NFT collections in the world. Everyone from Justin Bieber to Paris Hilton has climbed aboard the BAYC train. Today, the cheapest of the 10,000 strong collection (known as a floor price) is just under 68 ETH, some US$83,800 today, although at the peak of the crypto market, it would have been worth around US$332,000.
This explains provides the context as to how incredibly painful it must have been for a BAYC owner called ‘Max’ to sell BAYC #3457 for around US$3000, and not $275,000 as intended.
Poor ol’ Max made what is known as a ‘fat finger error’ in which he accidentally listed his prized ape for 0.75 ETH instead of 75 ETH. Almost instantaneously, someone snapped it up for what appeared to be an absolute bargain.
Sneaky
It’s thought that the sneaky purchaser was an NFT bot that prowls marketplaces looking for deals or more specifically, where sellers have made fat finger errors and list well below a collection’s floor price.
The lucky purchaser flipped it almost immediately for 59.9 ETH. The buyer was so keen to snap up the bargain that they paid US$34,000 in gas fees to speed things along. Talk about motivation.
Speaking to CNET at the time, when asked how it happened, Max replied: “A lapse of concentration I guess”.
“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 [$34,000] of gas fees so it was instantly sniped before I could click cancel, and just like that, $270k was gone”, Max added.
“And here within the beauty of the Blockchain you can see that it is both honest and unforgiving.”
Max has seemingly handled the situation well, saying that “The industry is so new, bad things are going to happen whether it’s your fault or the tech. Once you no longer have control of the outcome, forget and move on.”
The BAYC launched in April 2021 and each of the 10,000 NFTs were sold for just 0.08 ETH apiece. Today, the cheapest will set you back almost 69 ETH.
Although little is known about Max, he does appear to be the type that isn’t dwelling on the issue. But still, losing US$270,000 due to a fat finger error … that’s got to sting.
