How an NFT Trader Lost $150,000 Trying to Troll Twitter Bots
Fraud and fraud are ubiquitous in crypto, but sometimes the biggest losses these people inflict are on themselves. On Wednesday, an NFT trader suffered a spectacular loss of 100 Ether, or $150,000, due to a joke gone wrong.
“This will be the joke and bagpom of the century,” tweeted Franklin, a pseudonymous NFT trader known for owning over 50 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. “I deserve all the jokes and criticism.”
To understand Franklin’s self-inflicted wound, you need to know about the Ethereum Name Service. Ethereum wallets are by default 40 characters long — 0x and then 38 random letters and numbers — but ENS allows users to purchase a name for the wallet. Instead of an ugly string of characters, my wallet could be CNET.eth. Anyone can create a new ENS, provided the name is not already taken, and they are owned as NFTs which can then be traded.
It is to encryption what domain names are to the internet; crypto traders buy wallet names for their aliases, but also buy ENS domains like amazon.eth or nike.eth in the hope that these wallet addresses, like the website domains, will be worth a lot one day. (Porno.eth sold for $200,000.) There are several “ENS bot” accounts on Twitter, reporting notable sales of ENS domains, such as the $90,000 purchase of samsung.eth last week.
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
stop-doing-fake-buds-its-honestly-lame-my-guy.eth is now in the top 5 ENS sales of all time. A historic moment.
— 👁🗨.eth (@address_eth) 20 July 2022
Franklin is down to the 100th page of messing around with bids on ENS
You can say “oh yeah he has 50+ monkeys” but the guy works hard for his assets…genuinely feel for him pic.twitter.com/Q74SQHkghs
— Mitko🎈 | web3adventures.eth (@mitkopitko7) 20 July 2022
On Monday, Franklin tried to amuse himself by getting Twitter bots to report a ridiculous ENS offer. His plan was to crowdsource a stupid ENS name from his followers, create it and then, using another wallet, offer 100 Ether ($150,000) on ENS NFT on OpenSea. He hoped that the offer would trigger the ENS fine. Franklin ended up coining “stop-doing-fake-bids-it’s-honestly-lame-my-guy.eth.” The trick worked; a few ENS sales bots tweeted out the fake bid.
After that, someone offered Franklin 1,891 ether ($2,890) for the ENS address. Franklin accepted the offer, calling it “the most surprising 1,891 ETH I’ve ever made.” But he forgot to cancel the 100 ether bid he had made from his other wallet, meaning the offer was still active. The buyer took advantage by buying the ENS address from Franklin for $2,890 – and selling it back to Franklin’s second wallet for $150,000.
“I celebrated my joke about a domain sale, shared the spoils, but in a dream of greed forgot to cancel my own bid of 100 ETH to buy it back,” Franklin tweeted. “I wasn’t ‘botted.’ I had plenty of time to rescind my offer, I just ran to Twitter instead.”
