This week, a former owner of the Bored Ape Yacht Club is breaking new ground. They are bringing a lawsuit against the largest NFT marketplace OpenSea.
The action comes after a platform exploit affected the former owner of the Bored Ape. The said exploit uses inactive postings, which allowed hackers to ‘buy’ the Ape for for 0.01 ETH.
Bored Ape with Ballistics
A Texas citizen filed the complaint late last week. He was seeking over $1 million in damages, as well as the return of his Bored Ape #3475.
The individual claims that OpenSea was knowledgeable of the platform flaw. This platform flaw resulted in the selling of the Ape for 0.01 ETH. At the time it was exploited, it was not posted for sale by the owner.
The hacker purchased the Ape for 0.01 ETH, who soon resold it for 99 ETH. At today’s prices, that’s roughly $250,000. The Ape is in the top 20% of rare animals. Numerous Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs in this level of rarity fetch more than $1 million.
Furthermore, they provide substantial credence to the cash numbers in this claim.
The defendant continued to operate rather than closing down its platform to confront and remedy these security issues, according to the complaint. To continue collecting 2.5 percent of every transaction, the defendant jeopardized the security of its users’ NFTs and digital vaults. This is the first time OpenSea, or any other NFT marketplace, had a lawsuit.
The Possibilities
Considering how this case turns out, there’s a good chance that it will create a precedent for future NFT claims against marketplaces.
This is also a situation that all developing NFT marketplaces should keep a watch on.
There are large NFT initiatives which have major dollar signs next to them, and many people are investing substantial trust in NFT marketplaces, bored Ape or not.
The person who filed the lawsuit claims that he attempted to resolve the matter directly with OpenSea, but that he received no actual traction or movement from the marketplace. This isn’t the first time OpenSea has been hacked; there have been a lot of headlines about the issue this year alone.
The platform has also been in a back-and-forth with Larva Labs over the copycat project ‘CryptoPunks V1,’ which the marketplace recently pulled, and is keeping the legal department at OpenSea busy. The outcome of this newest case could have far-reaching consequences for more than simply the two persons involved.
