Author: Anonymous smart contract developer @0xquit

Compiled by: Nancy, PANews

On September 12, the highest bid for NFT CryptoPunk#2386was 600 ETH (worth about $1.41 million), but it was sold for 10 ETH (about $23,000). Through clever sleuthing and an unfortunate miscalculation, the mysterious buyer named "0x282" made a seven-figure profit.

The bargain was made through a tool called NIFTEX (NFT Fragmentation Tool) (the contract will exist forever). Since the Ape-themed CryptoPunk#2386was split into 10,000 ERC20 tokens on September 26, 2020, these fragments were eventually dispersed to the current 257 holders. Although NIFTEX has been closed, the contract is still valid on the chain, triggering the buyout function, and the user finally obtained ownership of the NFT at a fraction of its current value.

According to the NIFTEX mechanism, any shareholder can propose a "shotgun" acquisition, propose an acquisition price, and if no one counter-offers within 14 days, they can purchase the asset. So, the buyer launched an acquisition offer of 0.001 ETH per fragment (a total of 10 ETH) on August 28 (14 days ago). This proposal attracted the attention of two fragment holders, one of whom delayed because he thought he had more time, and the other (well-known NFT investor and 9dcc founder @gmoneyNFT) tried to block the deal, but failed due to miscalculation of the consideration amount.

According to the rules, in order to block a buyout, the shares held must be effectively purchased at a price higher than the proposer's proposed price. 0x282 proposed a price of 0.001 ETH per shard in the proposal, so the effective blocking price needs to be 0.0010000001 ETH. @gmoneyNFT submitted a counter-price of 0.000001 ETH (1000000000000 wei), which is slightly lower than the requirement. If another holder bids 10,000 wei, then this "shotgun" acquisition will be blocked.

However, in the end, 0x282 won one of only 24 rare Ape Punk artworks at a 70% discount on the CryptoPunk floor price, completing the "theft of the century."