How This NFT Whale Lost $150,000 on a ‘Prank’
Bored Ape NFT whale Franklin lost 100 wrapped Ethereum (WETH), worth roughly $150,000, due to a prank bid gone wrong for an Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain he registered on July 20.
The joke started on July 19 when Franklin asked his followers what “phrase or meme” they wanted him to place a 100 WETH bid on to trigger ENS Bid’s Twitter bot account.
What sentence or meme would you like me to get one’s bot to tweet out as a .eth address with a 100 WETH bid? Lol, I would have to stamp the ENS address myself too.
— Franklin 🅱️build 57 monkeys (@franklinisbored) 19 July 2022
Franklin then registered “stop-doing-fake-buds-its-honestly-lame-my-guy.eth” using another wallet and placed a 100 WETH bid from his main wallet.
However, Franklin received a surprise offer of 1.9 WETH (about $2,800) from someone else for the ENS domain. He accepted the offer, took to Twitter to celebrate his “victory”, and forgot to cancel his last 100 WETH offer for the same ENS name.
Well, this is the most surprising 1,891 ETH I have ever made. I owe everything #AGREED and @gweiman_ethhis creative idea. #Marketing101 pic.twitter.com/wk6CFBkugx
— Franklin 🅱️build 57 monkeys (@franklinisbored) 20 July 2022
Meanwhile, less than 30 minutes later, the new owner of the ENS domain name accepted Franklin’s forgotten bid of 100 WETH – essentially selling the domain name he bought from Franklin for $2,800 back to him for $150,000.
Oh no, I lost 100 ETH. I celebrated my joke about a domain sale, and shared the spoils, but in a dream of greed, I forgot to cancel my own bid of 100 ETH to buy it back. This will be the joke of the century. I deserve all the jokes and criticism.
— Franklin 🅱️build 57 monkeys (@franklinisbored) 20 July 2022
Franklin took to Twitter to lament the situation, tweeting that he was not “botted” and had “plenty of time” to rescind his offer.
The Bored Ape whale is now trying to recover his lost 100 WETH by refunding the 1.9 WETH he got from the ENS domain sale. However, he admits there is a “0% chance” he will get his money back.
Here is a summary of what happened. There’s a 0% chance I’ll get back whatever the person who sold into my stupid prank bid, but I might as well try. I sent them this NFT: pic.twitter.com/SPmwsSlgIa
— Franklin 🅱️build 57 monkeys (@franklinisbored) 20 July 2022
A Twitter account, 8892OS, claimed to be the recipient of Franklin’s 100 WETH.
i ripped this guy off for 100 eth and he sent me a new 1.9? pic.twitter.com/TXtBxqvkhB
— 8892 (@8892OS) 20 July 2022
As of press time, it is unclear if Franklin got the 100 WETH back.
The crypto community is reacting
Twitter’s crypto community has been divided in their reaction to this situation.
Some argued that the new seller should keep his inventory, while others believe Franklin should be refunded.
230 ETH to be exact 😂 I was thinking the same thing today! I feel so sorry for Franklin and we have seen how easy it is to forget or make mistakes. Hopefully the seller decides to do the right thing 🫶
— John Knopf (@JohnKnopfPhotos) 20 July 2022
God this is tough. I’d say it sucks, but in a way that person deserved it. They bet 2 ETH on this game. High risk high reward. They could have easily been down 2 ETH if the bid would have canceled and then accepted. I hope you earn your money back fam🙏
— MayanMango.eth (@MayanMango) 20 July 2022
Some members of the community also took the opportunity to troll Franklin.
Just registered this name and I am sending it to you my husband @franklinisbored
play-stupid-play-win-stupid-prizes.eth
— youthful.eth 🦇🔊🐊🇵🇸 (@ForSureNotHere) 20 July 2022
NFT aggregator DC Investor said everyone should learn from Franklin’s mistake and “respect the blockchain as a fiduciary layer.”
you guys have to respect the blockchain as a fiduciary layer and don’t go around making prank bids on things sign 100 ETH from your wallet
every time you sign something like that, know the seriousness of it
I feel bad for Franklin’s loss here but let it be a lesson to all https://t.co/aheENKpPrS
— DCinvestor.eth ⌐◨-◨ (@iamDCinvestor) 20 July 2022
