A nonfungible token (NFT) trader has made an expensive mistake by bidding 100 Ether (ETH) for a free NFT on the OpenSea marketplace. The free NFT was part of the Gemesis NFT collection launched to celebrate the release of OpenSea Pro on April 4. The trader’s mistake resulted in the NFT being purchased for 100 ETH, currently valued at $191,239, instead of the intended bid of $100.
OpenSea Pro
OpenSea Pro is a marketplace aggregator tailored to professional users, offering advanced features such as live cross-marketplace data and advanced orders. While some have speculated that the sale was a wash trade, others believe that the trader simply fat-fingered the bid and accidentally entered 100 ETH instead of $100.
According to a Reddit user who posted about the sale, the offer was an open one and available to anyone, making it too risky to be a wash trade. The risk lies in the fact that another trader or bot would have quickly snapped up an offer so far above the floor price of 0.04 ETH.
Wash trading is a form of market manipulation that is illegal in traditional stock markets but is prevalent in NFT trading. It involves a trader buying and selling an asset to feed misleading information to the market.
OpenSea acquired NFT aggregator Gem for an undisclosed amount on April 25, 2022, and refined the platform to create OpenSea Pro. Only users who bought at least one NFT on Gem before March 31 are eligible to mint a Gemesis NFT, and the minting window will close on May 4.
The costly mistake serves as a reminder to NFT traders to be careful when placing bids and to double-check the values before confirming any transactions.
