The world’s most popular NFT market is making a lot of changes to its platform. On Thursday evening in a big way some of the issues that people have had with OpenSea seem to be over.
Using obsolete contracts, attackers were able to get tokens for hundreds of thousands of dollars below market value. In one notable January transaction, a Bored Ape Yacht Club coin was acquired for around $2,000 and subsequently traded for almost $192,000.
That’s because the Ethereum blockchain saves gas by presenting offers locally instead of sending them into the main chain. Due to a weakness in that approach, past contracts may appear on the blockchain but not in OpenSea. Attackers might exploit out-of-date values by bidding on outdated contracts, catching token owners off unprepared.
According to OpenSea, the new method would enable users to terminate any unfulfilled commitments in exchange for a minor gas fee. A similar improvement intends to improve the readability of signatures, minimising the probability that users would misread contract terms in the future. Within 15 days, the new system will be fully operational, at which point consumers will be prompted to transfer their accounts to the new system.
OpenSea, the largest trading and bidding platform for NFTs, has seen tremendous success during the current boom. Simultaneously, the company has struggled to obtain and manage an influx of new market activity. Although not exclusive to OpenSea, a recent Chainalysis study showed a low but growing degree of money laundering activity in NFT marketplaces.
