Collector accidentally burns digital NFT token worth $ 135,000

on March 13, Brandon Riley bought CryptoPunk’s non-fungible token (NFT) #685 for 77 ETH and planned to hold it for the long term. Being an experienced investor, he knew how important it was to buy new NFTs right before the bull market started. As a result, he decided to borrow money against another token using the popular «wrapping» technique and accidentally sent the token to a burn address, permanently removing it from circulation.

«I was told to follow the instructions exactly, which I did,» Riley said. «I didn’t decide to turn this token in order to sell it on Blur — I just needed to borrow liquidity to buy another token.»

The opinions of the crypto community members about this event are divided. Some believe that the fault lies solely with the collector himself, while others agreed that the problem lies in confusing user interfaces and overly complicated instructions.

Meanwhile, the NFT market is showing signs of active recovery. According to the latest DappRadar report, in February, the trading volume of non-fungible tokens reached $ 2 billion, the highest since May 2022. One of the reasons for the growth was the surge in user interest in the popular Blur marketplace, which took the lead among NFT platforms in just a few weeks.

However, along with the growth of the sector, new problems have emerged: in the past few months, marketplaces have seen a rise in fictitious trading. According to CoinGecko, the volume of fake transactions on X2Y2, Blur, and LooksRare is over $ 280 million. Two other platforms, Magic Eden and OpenSea, reported the volume of fake transactions at $ 590,000 and $ 42.57 million, respectively.