CryptoPunk NFT Sells For $530M, But There's A Catch

A CryptoPunk NFT was purchased for $530 million on Thursday night, but Crypto Twitter was quick to point out that the sale was far from authentic.

What Happened: CryptoPunk 9998 was supposedly acquired for a record 124,457 Ethereum ETH/USD worth $532,414,977 at the time of the sale.

Punk 9998 bought for 124,457.07 ETH ($532,414,877.01 USD) by 0x9b5a5c from 0x8e3983. https://t.co/dmT6jDRC1W #cryptopunks #ethereum pic.twitter.com/UQlmm1oqkj

— CryptoPunks Bot (@cryptopunksbot) October 28, 2021

The transaction was picked up by a CryptoPunk bot that tracks the sales of the algorithmically generated pixelated characters.

While this sale would have undoubtedly gone down in history as the largest NFT sale on record, developers on Twitter identified that the high-value sale was nothing more than a publicity stunt.

you can see it here:

0x9b5a flash loans 124,457 ETH from many sources
0x9b5a pays 124,457 ETH to the punk contract
punk contract sends it to 0x8e39
0x8e39 sends back to 0x9b5a
0x9b5a repays loan

genius 😄https://t.co/nlo24twyEx pic.twitter.com/suPOMHRV7O

— mariano.eth ✨ᕙ༼💦༽ᕗ✨ | 🦇🔊 (@nanexcool) October 29, 2021

The purchase was made by someone who likely knew their way around a smart contract, by a series of flash loan transactions.

“In a nutshell, someone bought this punk from themself with borrowed money and repaid the loan in the same transaction,” explained Larva Labs, the creators of CryptoPunks.

“Some recent large bids were done the same way. The ether is offered and removed in a single transaction. So, while technically briefly valid, the bid can never be accepted. We’ll add filtering to avoid generating notifications for these kinds of transactions in the future.”

According to crypto wallet analytics tool Nansen, if the $530-million CryptoPunk sale was real, it would’ve made CryptoPunks the third-largest crypto asset after Bitcoin BTC/USD and Ethereum, with a market cap of $366 billion.

Photo by Fakurian Design on Unsplash.