A previous owner of a unique Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token (NFT) is pursuing marketplace OpenSea for USD 1 million or the token’s refund after an attack on the platform resulted in the NFT being sold for a fraction of its valuation.
Timothy McKimmy of Texas said the platform was aware of a weakness that enabled hackers to acquire NFTs below market price in a January attack but did not take the required steps to rectify it.
According to McKimmy’s lawsuit filed in Texas federal court, a flaw enabled Bored Ape #3475 to be transferred for 0.01 ETH (US$26) without the owner’s knowledge, and the alleged hacker promptly flipped the property for 99 ETH (US$250,000).
Although OpenSea reimbursed 750 ETH (US$1.8 million) to consumers who lost their NFTs in the hack, McKimmy stated that his attempts to negotiate a direct resolution with OpenSea were unsuccessful.
“In place of closing down its service to address and correct these security flaws, defendant continued to function. Defendant jeopardised the safety of its users’ NFTs and digital vaults in order to continue receiving 2.5 percent of every transaction indefinitely,” according to the lawsuit.
The world’s largest NFT marketplace has increasingly been at the focus of legal issues and frauds, causing angry consumers to migrate to competitor platforms.
This week, OpenSea was struck by a phishing scam that aimed at users in a USD 1.7 million loss of NFTs from the site.
