BAYC Owners Sue NFT Marketplace OpenSea Over Negligence

Three users have filed separate lawsuits against Opensea for the loss of their Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.

Two plaintiffs, Timmy McKimmy of Texas and Michael Valise of New York, claimed to have lost their BAYC in the same attack due to an exploit that targeted Open Sea’s code, according to a Monday report by ARTnews. On the other hand, Robert Armijo, a Nevada resident, allegedly lost his ape collection in a social engineering attack.

The three, who have since gone to court, claim that Open Sea was culpable for failing to ameliorate the situation and are now claiming millions of US dollars in damages.

As per court documents, Mc Kimmy stated that his efforts to resolve the issue with Open Sea had hit a wall and decries being unable to claim Apecoin, a new token that was airdropped to owners of BAYC NFTs since his assets were stolen.

“Even though Mc Kimmy didn’t have his NFT listed for sale, OpenSea requires you to connect a wallet, and so people can see what NFTs are in that wallet and can make offers on unlisted NFTs,” Ash Tadghighi, Mckimmy’s attorney said.

According to data on etherscan, it was established that the hacker exploited a security vulnerability on February 7, after which they were able to sell the NFTs to himself for 0.01ETH before selling them to another user for 99ETH within an hour. Tadgighi, who said that this was the first case of its kind, also represents Michael Valise, who allegedly suffered the same fate.

On the other hand, Robert Amijo lost two Mutant Ape Yacht Club(MAYC) NFTs and one BAYC NFT. However, unlike Timmy and Michael, Amijo’s loss was through a social engineering attack after clicking on random links on “OpenSea’s discord chat”, which drained his wallet off NFTs. Although OpenSea has a strict rule on users clicking links outside of the website, Amijo claimed that Open Sea was liable in that the hackers re-listed the NFTs for sale on the marketplace. “OpenSea has prioritised growth over consumer safety and the security of consumer’s digital assets,” the complaint reads.

In the past few weeks, theft cases have been rising within NFT marketplaces, with Open Sea and LooksRare being the most affected. In February, almost $2million worth of NFTs was stolen on OpenSea during a scheduled smart contract migration through a phishing attack. Whereas OpenSea freezes compromised NFTs and advises users to stay vigilant and avoid signing or clicking links outside its website, still, its customer service seems to be from hell.