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<\/p>\nYouTuber and nonfungible token (NFT) trader Hanwe Chang said he scored 800 Ether (ETH), around $1.5 million, by tricking a rival trader\u2019s bot into buying his own inflated NFTs.<\/p>\n
In an Aug. 5 X (Twitter) post, Chang said\u00a0he noticed a bot was copying his bids on the NFT marketplace Blur and decided to trick them.<\/p>\n
An NFT-focused account A Raving Ape speculated that from a separate, anonymous wallet Chang purchased multiple Azuki NFTs sharing the same background color.<\/p>\n
Knowing bots were copying his trades, Chang placed an inflated bid on the NFTs held in his anonymous wallet from his publicly-known hanwe.eth wallet.<\/p>\n
Once a bot automatically copied the inflated bid, Chang accepted it from his anonymous wallet and was able to palm off the NFTs at a significant markup.<\/p>\n
Seemingly, the owner of the bot known as elizab.eth responded to Chang\u2019s post claiming the funds were stolen and offered to discuss a 10% bounty if the funds were returned.<\/p>\n
Chang\u2019s on-chain move triggered discussion over its legality.<\/p>\n
Lawyer Gabriel Shapiro said he thinks elizab.eth \u201cmight have good legal claims\u201d to get their ETH back from Chang\u2019s trick \u2014 but only if they hire a skilled litigation attorney.<\/p>\n
NFT volumes have continued to slide in the ongoing bear market, having sank by almost half over July.<\/p>\n
Figures from NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam show U.S. dollar sales volume decreased nearly 42% over July with the month starting off with $22 million in daily volume before sinking to $12.8 million on July 31.<\/p>\n
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July\u2019s drop comes after a significant rally in late June where daily sales volumes peaked at nearly $58.5 million on June 27, the largest trading day since March 16\u2019s $61.9 million figure.<\/p>\n
Royalties from NFTs are also biting creators. A July 25 report from Nansen said out of the 699,816 ETH in royalties paid to NFT projects, just 9.4% of the figure was in the first half of 2023.<\/p>\n
Nansen said the effective fee rate for royalties has seen a significant downtrend \u2014 average royalties in 2022 were 2.5% which as of July 2023 had dropped to 0.6%, a 98% drop.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, NFT-related thefts have seen their slowest month in 2023. <\/p>\n
Figures by blockchain security firm PeckShield shared on Aug. 6 show around $1.7 million worth of NFTs were stolen in July. The figure marks a 31% decrease from June.<\/p>\n
PeckShield said half of the stolen NFTs were sold within less than three hours, or 165 minutes, on marketplaces such as Blur and OpenSea after being nabbed.<\/p>\n
Blur had the highest amount of stolen NFTs sold, with over 67% while OpenSea had just under 20% sold through its platform, PeckShield claimed.<\/p>\n
Just over $41.5 million worth of NFTs have been stolen in 2023 up until the end of July. February was the biggest month for NFT thieves, where they stole $16.2 million worth of tokens.<\/p>\n
VeeFriend\u2019s, the NFT project by entrepreneur and internet talking head Gary Vaynerchuck has joined the latest craze of NFT-related sneakers.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 4 VeeFriend\u2019s announced its partnered with Reebok to launch a limited edition sneaker only available to those holding an alpaca-related NFT as part of the collection.<\/p>\n
The shoe looks like any other aside from a few changes. The tongue of the shoe depicts the original handdrawn version of VeeFriend\u2019s alpaca NFT and the NFT project\u2019s logo appears in place of Reebok\u2019s.<\/p>\n