BREAKING NEWS: A Fractionalized Ape CryptoPunk That Was Worth Millions Sold For Thousands Today In What Some Call Stealing And Others Call Arb.

An Ape-type CryptoPunk worth millions, fractionalized and owned by hundreds of people, sold at a 98% discount today after a bid was made that the community failed to reject.

Some are calling this the “biggest CryptoPunk heist in history,” while others see it as just an “arb” opportunity. Regardless of how you view it, the fact remains: CryptoPunk #2386, a two-attribute Ape-type punk with a headband and small shades, conservatively valued at 600 ETH (about $1.4 million USD), sold for just 10 ETH (around $23,000 USD).

This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill fat-finger mistake or phishing scheme. The sale occurred because an anonymous user made an offer to purchase the Punk via a now-defunct NFT fractionalization platform called Niftex and the fractionalized token holders who owned the Ape failed to decline the bid in time.

“Once upon a time when fractionalization was en vogue, ape 2386 was fractionalized and valued at like 450 ETH,” CryptoPunk holder Niftynaut explained in a thread today. “This happened on a now dysfunctional site called niftex. The ape stayed fractionalized even after they shut down as it was in an escrow contract. 10,000 shares were all distributed between loads of people. And a buyout was not possible. Until now. The contract worked in a way that if you propose a buyout, a 14 day grace period was initiated where the rest of the shareholders had time to ponder and accept or reject it 14 days ago someone made a proposal for .001 eth per share. It was not rejected and went through. Buying price: 10 ETH last apes sold for 620 eth, 3.3k eth and 2.69 eth”

 

 

“The shittiest part about this is i blocked it last night with a few hours left,” former 8% owner of CryptoPunk #2386 and 9dcc founder GMoney tweeted.

Later this evening, GMoney took to the timeline again and gave the Web3 world a “TLDR” on how this terrible deal happened.

“tldr on the niftex ape: i was informed of the buyout by a random dm with 7 hours left,” he wrote. “The front ends aren't working anymore so had to interact with the contract. the buyer had apparently blocked someone else buying it before, and just executed the same way. i reached out to the 2 blockchain chads i know and trust the most for help with it. i thought we had blocked it. gg to the new owner.”

 

GMoney has since stated that he does not consider what happened here stealing, instead labeling it an arb opportunity that someone used to their advantage.

“I don’t consider this a heist. It’s an arb, he wrote. "The smart contract worked as intended. If you want decentralized systems you have to take the good with the bad. It’s part of the game. It’s why we’re here. If you don’t like those rules, you probably shouldn’t be playing."

However, not everyone agrees on what happened here.

Notable NFT and Crypto trader BeanieMaxi took to the timeline and said that the anonymous user who did this stole the Ape Punk from its rightful owners.

“Strong disagree. Code is not law,” Beanie tweeted, “That’s well established. There’s real victims here. Nobody would have knowingly agreed to sell their ownership of this asset at a 99% discount. For crypto to be taken seriously the buck has to stop somewhere. And there has to be accountability.”

 

Take a look at 0xQuit's technical breakdown of what happened here below:

The Bored Ape Gazette will continue to follow CryptoPunk #2386 and will keep you updated on the Ape. Stay tuned for updates!