A Dune Analytics user has counted the number of NFTs from top collections that have been tagged as stolen or suspicious and thus frozen on Open seaand the numbers are staggering.
According to a new dashboard on the cryptodata aggregator, 130 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs and 268 Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs have been tagged as “reported for suspicious activity” on OpenSea, meaning that previous owners of these NFTs have contacted the marketplace and identified them as stolen. The value of these NFTs is over $ 18.5 million.
That number does not include 153 Azuki NFTs that have been frozen, the 202 stolen CloneX or 70 Moonbirds. If sold at current floor prices, it will amount to an additional $ 6.9 million with “stolen” NFTs, which means that among half of OpenSea’s top 10 collections of all time, over $ 25.4 million of NFTs has been marked as stolen.
NFTs– Unique blockchain tokens that mean ownership of other assets – can only be transferred or sold to a new owner if the holder approves a transaction. So even though many NFTs are considered “stolen” by their previous owners, in most cases these owners authorized a transaction without being aware of it. This is often the result of phishing scams via email, Twitter or Discord.
OpenSea sine Policy is to disable allegedly stolen NFTs from being traded on the site. But some NFT traders, for example, popular Boring monkey keeper «Franklin“has pointed out that OpenSea’s reach only extends so far, and it may be possible to trade these” locked “NFTs in other marketplaces, as LooksRare.
Others, like Moonbirds holder Jameson and many second on Twitterhair argued as OpenSea’s “stolen items” policy is incorrect and too centralized, given the widespread power of the marketplace to freeze what are ultimately believed to be decentralized blockchain assets. OpenSea did not respond immediately Decrypthis request for comment on the matter.
More generally, this is not the first time OpenSea has been criticized for being “centralized.” Twilio software engineer Blake Petersen claimed that the problem can also be used on everyone Web3– the idea that the next iteration of the internet will take advantage of blockchain technology to verify data ownership.
“This is ‘Web3’ – asking for a centralized API to allow you to be indexed so you can present an authenticated PFP on a stupid social media app,” Petersen wrote on Twitter about his issue makes its NFT on OpenSea hexagon on Twitter.
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