A Dune platform user has set up a data analysis system to measure which NFTs are currently reported stolen on the OpenSea platform. And the amounts are considerable: for the Bored Ape Yacht Club and relative Mutant collections alone, the amount of NFTs involved is over $18.5 million.
BAYC NFTs widely reported as suspicious on OpenSea
Beetle, a Twitter user, has set up a tool so that users of the Dune analytics platform can see in real time which non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are categorized as stolen on OpenSea, the largest marketplace dedicated to NFTs.
OpenSea doesn’t provide any public data on assets they *questionably* mark as stolen;
in an attempt to make these assets visible to the public, I created a dashboard of all stolen BAYC, MAYC, BAKC, Clonex, Moonbirds, and Azuki token IDs + txns
linkhttps://t.co/Nuj1Z5I7FC pic.twitter.com/J3xaehFlTi
– beetle (@1kbeetlejuice) July 6, 2022
OpenSea does not provide any public data on the assets they *questionably* categorise as stolen. In an attempt to make this category of assets visible to the public, I created a dashboard of all NFTs BAYC, MAYC, BAKC, Clonex, Moonbirds and Azuki with their IDs and transactions. “
And the result is clear: the number of NFTs considered stolen or suspicious and their dollar value is considerable.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) collections, two of the largest collections of NFTs on the market and both created by Yuga Labs, are valued at over $18.5 million.
Thus, 130 NFTs from BAYC (out of a total of 10,000) and 268 NFTs from MAYC (out of a total of 19,423) are indicated as suspicious. This happens when their former owners contact OpenSea to report the NFTs as stolen.
If we add the other NFT collections listed by Beetle, 153 Azuki, 202 CloneX as well as 70 Moonbirds, this would add $6.9 million to the amount of NFTs reported stolen from the platform on some of its larger collections. This would bring the total to over $25.4 million at the current floor price.
A system that seems flawed
The OpenSea platform, in addition to marking certain NFTs as stolen or suspicious following a user’s declaration, can also suspend the purchase, sale or transfer of such NFTs on its marketplace. Thus, we can read on the page dedicated to the site’s terms of service:
“You may not buy, sell or transfer any of the NFTs concerned on its marketplace.
You [the user] also agree not to: use the service to buy, sell or transfer stolen items, fraudulently obtained items, items taken without permission, and/or any other illegally obtained items.
A number of the platform’s users have been quick to criticise this type of operation. For them, OpenSea presents here a system that is too centralised, with too much power to freeze certain assets as it sees fit.
However, such a structure, which indeed seems to be designed to protect its own users above all, can also have certain flaws, as Franklin, a Twitter user known in the BAYC community, pointed out:
Infinite money glitch:
Step 1: Sell my ape
Step 2: Tell OpenSea that I got it stolen so they can mark it as suspicious and lock it on their site
Step 3: Buy my ape back for cheaper on another marketplace
Step 4: Contact OpenSea so they can unlock my ape
Step 5: Repeat https://t.co/u2t4We6eAq– Franklin has 60 apes (@franklinisbored) July 2, 2022
According to him, an NFT reported as stolen is destined to mechanically lose its value, and remains tradable on other platforms such as LooksRare. A holder of an NFT purchased in this way could resell it at a higher price on OpenSea after contacting the site’s support.
In addition, it should be noted that an NFT holder can report it stolen from OpenSea simply after having (by his fault) accepted a fraudulent transaction via phishing or scam, as it happened last month for example, Yuga Labs’ social networks being often targeted by attacks.
