According to a tweet from the ENS lead developer, a problem in the OpenSea non-fungible token marketplace has resulted in the destruction of more than $100,000 in non-fungible tokens.
Today, a malfunction in the OpenSea marketplace resulted in the destruction of 42 non-fungible tokens (NFT), as well as the very first Ethereum Name Service (ENS) name ever registered.
Nick Johnson, the principal developer of ENS, revealed the news via Twitter. The ENS that was destroyed was ‘rilxxlir.eth,’ which was held in an ENS account despite Johnson’s registration and payment. The issue emerged when Johnson attempted to transfer an ENS name that was in NFT format to a burn address. That is, the ENS is permanently lost, unable to be relocated, or even accessed.
“Today I accidentally burned the first ENS name ever registered,” Johnson tweeted, starting a chain of tweets that uncovered more of the problem. “I’m the owner of rilxxlir.eth, the first ENS name registered, and the longest continuously registered ENS name. The name itself was ‘mined’ – picked because its hash is very low and therefore it was one of the first names available for auction back in 2017,” Johnson added.
Johnson says that while he retains control of rilxxlir.eth and is able to set ENS records, he will never be able to retrieve them. Despite this, Johnson appeared relieved that, while the NFT is historically significant, it has no practical significance. “It exposed a flaw that may have resulted in the destruction of certain valuable NFTs and enabled the bug to be addressed before it could impact anyone else,” Johnson continues.
How did this transpire?
Johnson continues by describing the circumstances around the deletion and the issue that resulted. After transferring the ENS back to a persona account via OpenSea, he attempted to send the NFT to his personal ETH account, however, the NFT was transferred to a burn address. Johnson was informed by OpenSea that a flaw had been implemented into its transfer page, affecting all ERC-721 transfers to ENS names. Johnson was also informed that he was the bug’s sole victim to date and that ownership of rilxxlir.eth had been “permanently. Burned.”
Despite OpenSea’s statement, Johnson later stated that he was not the only victim of this flaw and that over 30 transactions from 21 different accounts were impacted. 42 NFTs were lost in those approximately 30 transactions, the majority of which used the ERC-721 standard. Johnson estimates that approximately $100,000 in NFTs were burnt and will never be recovered. OpenSea has not yet commented on the matter, although Johnson reports that the flaw has been corrected.
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