A simple mistake led one crypto user to sell his precious rock NFT for 444 WEI instead of 444 ETH, a tenth of a penny rather than $1.2 million.
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It’s a hard rock life for one crypto user. A clumsy keystroke and the actions of a sniper bot caused a million-dollar mistake on March 10.
A rock valued at 444 Ether (ETH), or $1.2 million, sold for 444 Wei ($0. 0012) to a bot as the seller, DinoDealer, confused WEI and ETH. In a tweet, the seller said “in one click my entire net worth of ~$1 million dollars, gone.”
How’s your week?
Mine? I just erroneously listed @etherrock #44 for 444 wei instead of 444 eth
Bot sniped it in the same block and trying to flip for 234 eth
In one click my entire net worth of ~$1 million dollars, gone
Is there any hope?
Am I GMI? Can snipers show mercy pic.twitter.com/yq9Itb2Ukb
— Rock dust (@dino_dealer) March 10, 2022
The “bot sniped” refers to bot snipers, which initially came into usage on auction site eBay. The tools are used by buyers who want to time their bids to the minute. They are now very popular on listings for nonfungible tokens (NFT). The popular freelance website Upwork currently lists bot sniping tools for the NFT platform OpenSea from as little as $200. Once the bot has taken the NFT or digital receipt it’s impossible to go back. Because blockchains are immutable, simple errors, such as confusing ETH with WEI, can lead to huge financial losses.
Indeed, human error abounds in the crypto world. An unfortunate Bitcoin (BTC) user recently lost $10,000 (0. 25 BTC) in a mistake that could have been avoided had they double-checked the receiver wallet address.
The seller, DinoDealer, seems to have come to terms with the loss, publicly sharing the address of the rock’s bot snipe. They made light of the situation, uploading a new profile picture to Twitter and adding a crying emoticon after their Twitter handle. Their avatar is next to the precious stone, with red highlights.
More jokes came from DinoDealer’s futile attempt to reach out to the “crypto customer service.” Their attempts to speak to members of the crypto community were met with replies from suspicious users purporting to help, offering email addresses and WhatsApp numbers.
Do not reach out to these numbers or email addresses.
The past month was turbulent due to seemingly minor mistakes with potentially serious consequences. Sometimes, even minor errors can cause market losses of millions of dollars. This has become more common.
Related: Rare Bears Discord phishing attack nabs $800K in NFTs
A Coinbase white hacker discovered a mistake in the Coinbase Pro code that could have nuked the market, while frantic bot trading behaviors drained the WTF token launch of 58 ETH. The launch was canceled due to poor liquidity pool management.
In better days for DinoDealer, other crypto rock enthusiasts have come to his aid, one user sending the geologist salesman a picture of the rock with glasses and headphones, signed “mfer rocks.”
