“Fat Finger” Mistakes or Bad Investments? Here are 10 NFTs that were sold at a significant loss as the crypto markets have cooled
We hear a lot about big NFT sales where prices go up and the seller makes a lot of money. But in recent months, many NFTs have sold for much less than what they were bought for.
The crypto markets have plummeted, taking NFT sales down with them. But unlike fungible tokens – that is, cryptocurrencies – the NFT market is much more difficult to decipher, and trades on individual NFTs often carry their own stories.
Celebrities who “acquire” high-value NFTs tend not to sell them. If NFT prices fall too low, NFT collectors will simply stop listing them, hoping that the market will pick up again in the future. Fat finger error, when the seller enters the wrong listing price or accepts the wrong bid, is surprisingly common. When a bold finger entry occurs, it is often turned over immediately by robots. Strange sales and buying patterns can also be attributed to the laundry trade – when the same person buys and sells from himself – or even money launderingboth of which are well documented in the NFT market.
Stolen NFTs are also a big problem. Many collections have several frozen tokens which are not going to be sold in the market.
What follows is a list of NFTs that sold too much less – or did not sell at all because bids were too low – during the months following the NFT boom. Often sellers and bidders are pseudonymous, so we can only guess why they sold at a loss.
CryptoPunk # 273
Bought for $ 1 million Oct. 19; sold for $ 139,000 on May 8th
CryptoPunk # 273. Photo via OpenSea.
One of the earliest and most famous collections of NFTs is CryptoPunks, developed by Larva Labs in 2017. In October last year, CryptoPunk 273, which points to a pixelated boy wearing large shades and a cap, was purchased for $ 1 million (265 ETH). That was when the NFT market was hot.
Six months later, the NFT market was cooling, and the collector sold it for $ 139,000 (55 ETH), with a loss of 80 percent. On June 14, this punk exchanged hands again for $ 102,172 (89 ETH), representing a further drop in valuation.
Bored Ape Yacht Club # 9518
Bought for $ 525,000 April 30; sold for $ 227,000 on May 10th
Bored Ape Yacht Club # 9518. Photo via OpenSea.
On April 30, someone bought an NFT from a boring monkey with a red hat, a sleeveless T-shirt and rainbow-colored teeth for $ 525,520 (186 ETH). One and a half weeks later, they sold NFT for half that price – $ 227,360 (112 ETH). Interestingly, the buyer in this transaction, which goes by the username punksOTC, simplifies over-the-counter trades and private deals, which may explain why this piece was sold for the price it did.
Buyers attached Tweet reads: «Are you a professional NFT trader who wants to expand the volume and lower the fees? DM me. “Looking at Etherscan, you can see that when Apen went from the seller to punksOTC, NFT was part of a transaction that replaced it with several other Bored Ape-associated NFTs.
Sotheby’sPunk It! ‘, a collection of 14 CryptoPunks
Estimated to sell for $ 20 million – $ 30 million; The auction was canceled on February 23 due to lack of bids
Larve Labs, Punk it! collage of CryptoPunks. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s.
If there has ever been an NFT auction that was an epic failure, this may have been. Sotheby’s described the auction in February 2022 as “Punk It!” as “a truly historic sale for an undeniable historic NFT project.” The collection consisted of 104 CryptoPunks. The seller, who goes by the name 0x650d, boasted on Twitter that he originally bought the entire batch for $ 7 million in ether.
Sotheby’s estimated that the party would go for $ 20 million to $ 30 million – but in the end it was not sold at all. 23 minutes into the auction, 0x650d, twitret: “Nvm, decided to hodl“Sotheby’s will not comment on why the seller withdrew, but sources told Blockworks there were not enough bids.
Jack Dorsey’s first tweet
Purchased for $ 2.9 million March 22, 2021; highest bid a year later: $ 277
Jack Dorsey’s first tweet. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.
In March 2021, the NFT market bubbled up and NFTs started selling for insane sums. That’s when Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey made an NFT out of his first ever tweet and put it up for auction on the NFT marketplace Valuables. Crypto-founder Sina Estavi won the auction with a bid of 1630 ETH ($ 2.9 million). Estavi called his purchase “The Mona Lisa of the digital world. “
A little over a year later, Estavi twitret that he would sell his “Mona Lisa. “He listed it on Opensea for 14,969 ETH (about $ 46 million). When the auction closed a week later, the top bid was $ 277 in ETH, out of seven bids. Consequently, Estavi still holds NFT.
Melania TrumpsHead of State Assembly ‘
First Lady buys her own NFT for $ 185,000 on January 25th
Melania Trumps “Head of State Collection” NFT
On January 11, former First Lady Melania Trump began auctioning “Head of State Collection 2022” on the Solana blockchain, offer a package which included a wide-brimmed hat Melania wore during a visit in 2018 with French President Emanuel Macron, along with a watercolor of her wearing the hat, and an NFT pointing to a jpeg of the watercolor.
The winning bid was $ 180,000 in tokens (1800 SOL at the time). But further digging revealed that at the last minute, the creator of NFT moved some funds around to various digital wallets and submitted the winning bid. It looked like the auction was over such a dud, the owners bought their own NFT. The money went to charity.
Bored Ape Yacht Club # 3158
Bought for $ 200,000 May 11; sold for $ 21,000 on May 23rd
Bored Ape Yacht Club # 3158. Photo via OpenSea.
A monkey with rainbow braces and a mohawk was sold for $ 202,000 (88 ETH) on May 11th. Two weeks later, on May 23, it was sold for a tenth of the price – $ 20,680 (10 ETH). This turned out to be another fat finger tragedy. “Yes, it was a fat finger. Tried to list at 105. Never thought it would happen to me. Destructive,” said the seller who goes by @nft_metaman in a chirping.
Doggy # 4292
Bought for $ 32,000 April 25; listed for $ 10 million; last highest bid: $ 480
Doggy # 4292. Photo via OpenSea.
A Snoop Dog-curated NFT, titled Doggy # 4292, was purchased in early April for approximately $ 32,000 (9.69 ETH). The pixelated image, of a green-skinned astronaut standing on a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, is currently up for auction – and has been for several months – with a suggested price of 8,888 ETH (about $ 10 million). The last high bid was 0.44 ETH — about $ 480.
He should have taken $ 480. The current floor price for Snoop Dogg’s “Doggies” collection is $ 249 (0.23 ETH).
The owner paid too much for this work. The person he bought it from had paid $ 420 to make this NFT, and then tried to turn it around for $ 162,000, putting the price down each month until a large enough sucker arrived. It eventually sold for $ 33,000, which was much higher than any resale from this collection.
CrypToadz # 2155
Bought for $ 1 million October 5th; sold for $ 8,300 on June 13th
CrypToadz # 2155 by GREMPLIN. Photo via OpenSea.
It does not always pay to huddle. CryptToadz is an avatar NFT collection. In October 2021, a collector paid $ 1.05 million (300 ETH) for CrypToadz # 2155, a pixel art image of a toad skeleton with big yellow eyes against a blue background. Eight months later, on June 13, when the crypto markets crashed hard, he sold NFT for 6.9 ETH (around $ 8,300) —a Loss of $ 1.02 million. It looks like collectors are trying to cut his losses in the market downturn.
Bored Ape Yacht Club # 7256
Bought for $ 513,000 April 30; sold for $ 161 June 1st
Bored Ape Yacht Club # 7256. Photo via OpenSea.
April 30 bought an NFT collector Boring monkey # 7256, a monkey with Xs over his eyes, an army hat and a dagger in his mouth, for $ 513,000 (188 ETH). June 1st he sold the monkey for $ 161 (0.088 ETH).
It’s hard to know for sure what happened, but this looks like a fat finger mistake by an overly anxious salesman. During the days leading up to the sale, the seller, who goes by the username onekiller, went out and canceled entries for the monkey several times, as if he was not quite ready to take the leap. The entries were all between 250 ETH and 145 ETH, indicating that the onekiller had full control over his account (meaning it was not hacked), but no control over his fingers.
Bored Ape Yacht Club # 835
Bought for $ 50,000 on August 9, 2021, sold for $ 115 on March 28
Bored Ape Yacht Club # 835. Photo via OpenSea.
Mistakes are happening! It just seems like they happen more often when it comes to Bored Apes. Last summer, an NFT buyer named Calvin Chan paid $ 50,000 (16 ETH) for a Bored Monkey with stumps, a leather jacket and a cigarette dangling from his lips. March 28th he sold the monkey for $ 115 (115 DAI) on OpenSea.
Chan could have sold his NFT for significantly more – there were other bids closer to the market value of the NFT which he did not accept – which suggested that this was a fat finger and that he might get DAI (a stablecoin cryptocurrency linked to the dollar) confused with ether .
He later announced on Twitter he had been “swiped” by this and another Bored Ape-related NFT. “I’m fine. In shock, but okay, he said. ‘Do I know what happened? No. Still trying to wrap my head around how and why. ”
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