Following a recent phishing attempt in which its customers lost roughly $3 million in NFTs, activity on OpenSea has decreased significantly.
According to accessible data from DappRadar, trading activity decreased by 37% to roughly $660 million, while the number of traders on the largest NFT platform decreased by over 20% to a little over 220,000.
This looks to be the result of the platform’s recent breach. The attacker successfully imitated an OpenSea email encouraging users to transfer their NFTs to a new smart contract; nevertheless, the attacker’s email smart contract duped the original holders into transferring their digital token to him for 0 ETH.
According to a rapid status assessment, the attack affected 17 accounts and resulted in a loss of $1.7 million. On the other hand, independent researchers estimate the number to be between $2 million and $3 million.
Drowning NFTs in OpenSea
Timothy McKimmy, one of the victims who lost a Bored Ape, has filed a complaint against OpenSea, accusing the company of “negligence” and asking the court to force the company to compensate him for “the worth of the Bored Ape, or monetary damages exceeding $1,000,000.”
However, according to a statement from OpenSea, they disagree with DappRadar’s numbers. “More accurate and thorough statistics are on Dune Analytics,” according to the crypto business.
According to statistics from Dune Analytics, the latest hacks had little to no impact on the platform’s transactions and user activity.
LooksRare, a competing NFT platform that began in early January, might be one of the new destinations for OpenSea users.
However, according to DappRadar statistics from the previous seven days, the platform’s trade volume fell by 65 percent. In contrast, BloctoBay, a new marketplace based on the Flow blockchain, had a 215 percent increase in trading activity.
OpenSea had a 332 ETH vulnerability in late January, worth roughly $751k at the time. The vulnerability allowed users to purchase NFTs well below the floor price, such as a Mutant Ape for 0.77 ETH.
It appears that OpenSea and NFTs, in general, have had a bad month in February. Cryptocurrency is becoming more popular, and hackers are taking advantage of it to defraud people.