The seller accidentally listed the price as 0.75 ETH instead of 75 ETH
An in-demand non-fungible token (NFT) has been accidentally sold for a little more than $3,000 (£2,270) – one-hundredth of its market price.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a limited run of 10,000 pieces of digital art, each with minor variations.
But yesterday, the owner of Bored Ape number 3,547 made a typing error when listing the item for sale online. The seller, maxnaut, told CNet he had meant to list Bored Ape number 3,547 for sale at 75 ethereum (ETH), the crypto-currency used for many NFT trades.
But a “lapse of concentration” – during one of the many trades he lists online every day – had caused him to instead type in “0.75 ETH” ($2,989).
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The NFT was instantly snapped up by an automated account – and put back on sale at nearly $250,000.
The suspected-bot buyer also paid very high “gas” fees – which determine how quickly the Ethereum network processes a transaction – of 8 ETH ($32,000), to ensure the sale went through almost instantly.
In traditional banking transactions, such errors are usually reversed easily if the bank facilitating them is told about the mistake quickly.
But in the unregulated crypto-trading market, there is usually no way to reverse such a sale.