On April 1, Taiwanese pop singer Jay Chou posted on social platforms that his NFT "BAYC #3738" was stolen by others. This NFT was previously given to Jay Chou by his friend Huang Licheng and has been in possession for more than 2 months. According to the information of the global NTF trading platform Opensea, it has been transferred out of the Jay Chou address and soon changed hands on other platforms several times at a price of more than 150ETH. At current ETH prices, Jay's lost NFT is worth more than $500,000.
Upstream News saw on social platforms, Jay Chou said that yesterday (April 1) received a phone call, "My friend in order to help me mint (NFT term, refers to the creation, coinage) Huang Licheng big brother's new project, the result of the big brother sent me monkey was stolen by the phishing website." After he found out that it was not an April Fool's Day joke, his mood was a little difficult to calm down, and he reminded everyone to be cautious. Huang Licheng responded after seeing it "April fool's day?" (April Fool's Day joke?) ", seems to be surprised by the theft of Jay Chou.
Huang Licheng's Bored Ape Yacht Club is arguably the world's most expensive NFT collection in the world, with floors costing as much as $280,000. In addition, at noon on April 1, the Zian website Packshield also confirmed that Jay Chou's loss was more than one boring ape, and there was also a "mutant ape" NFT and two Doodles NFTs were stolen, with heavy losses.
What is an NFT?
NFT, known as Non-Fungible Token, refers to non-homogeneous tokens, is the only cryptocurrency token used to represent digital assets, including in the form of pictures and video clips, that can be traded.
In simple terms, an NFT is a unit of data based on a blockchain digital ledger that acts as an electronic authentication of virtual goods ownership. NFTs can be digital files such as paintings, music, videos, game gear, or other creative works. While the NFT artwork itself can be copied indefinitely, the NFT's transaction information is recorded and tracked on the underlying blockchain and provides buyers with proof of ownership.
Therefore, compared with the visual works of the NFT itself, its traceable ownership and the underlying secure and trustworthy blockchain technology are the real value of these pictures. In other words, when you own an NFT, you own the work that is recognized by the whole network.
And because these NFTs are usually not created by people, but generated by AI, many of them can't even find the original author, and having an NFT basically means that you have all its powers, not only can it be used as an avatar, but also the future registration of trademarks, production peripherals or other commercialization behaviors can be better guaranteed.
2021 is the year of the NFT explosion. According to DappRadar data, NFTs traded more than $23 billion for the full year of 2021, with the reserve price of the top 100 NFT collections reaching $16.7 billion.
There are many incidents of NTF theft around the world
With the soaring value, NFTs have also become the target of some criminals and hackers, and related NFT thefts have emerged one after another.
In February this year, an overseas user posted that he had lost all of the BAYC series NFTs, which were subsequently resold by hackers at a price of about 10 times lower. He said the hackers sold all of his collections for 100 Ethereums, with a total value of about $275,000 (about 1.8 million yuan), but according to the scarcity and non-reproducibility of the collection, his collection should be worth 1,000 Ethereums, about $2.7 million (about 17.28 million yuan).
Dr. Liu Feng, director of the Blockchain Technology and Application Research Center of Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, said that NFTs are also one of the cryptocurrencies, mainly non-homogeneous tokens that meet the ERC721 specification, that is to say, the basic attributes are still cryptocurrencies. Therefore, as long as the corresponding private key is leaked, the NFT is still easy to be stolen and lost.
Liu Feng pointed out that similar to the anti-theft of cryptocurrencies, it is necessary to protect their private keys. On the one hand, when trading, try not to disclose your private key code in any other channel to prevent theft because of Trojan horses or viruses; on the other hand, it also prevents you from inadvertently revealing your private key in real life and logging in to others. Once the private key is leaked or lost, the NFT will most likely be stolen.
People's Daily: Be wary of NTF's "drumming and passing on flowers" financial scam
In addition to the risk of hacking theft, the NFT project with soaring value also has extensive controversy in the field of regulatory standards and nature standards, and there are risks such as speculation, money laundering and financial productization on the domestic side, so the focus of digital collections on domestic platforms is currently on collection attributes, rather than financial attributes.
According to the research of Tianfeng Securities, NFTs also have the following problems:
First, the problem of speculation, that is, the limited issuance and scarcity of NFTs are easy to cause speculation and price bubbles;
The second is the problem that the original assets cannot be confirmed, that is, although the blockchain technology can trace the information source of the digital content that has been on the chain to ensure the authenticity and ownership of the digital content after the digital content is on the chain, there are loopholes in the asset confirmation link before the digital content is minted into the NFT, and the mint platform cannot confirm the copyright ownership of the digital content;
The third is the problem of energy consumption, that is, the surge in NFT products and transactions will consume a lot of energy, which will have a negative impact on the climate.
People's Daily previously commented that at present, the legal nature, trading methods, supervision subjects, supervision methods, etc. of NFTs in China have not yet been clarified, and there are risks such as speculation, money laundering and financial productization of NFTs, and we should maintain a cautious attitude towardST investment and be wary of financial scams that "beat the drum and spread the flowers".
A little more news
40 minutes to sit and collect 62 million yuan, you don't know the "king of NFT" Jay Chou
On New Year's Day 2022, Jay Chou wrote on social media: "2022 brother first change the avatar for a few months and feel the feeling of the meta-universe."
Echoing the action of changing heads, on January 1, a meta-universe platform called Ezek, together with Jay Chou's fashion brand PHANTACi, sold the NFT project Phanta Bear (Phantom Bear) in limited quantities, with a quantity of 10,000, each selling 0.26 Ether. According to the calculation of one Ether is about 23893 yuan, the price of each phantom bear is about 6212 yuan, and 10,000 is more than 62 million yuan.
Due to Jay Chou's blessing, the platform sales channel just opened and poured in a large number of users, the web page once fell into a state of caton, 3,000 sold within 5 minutes, about 40 minutes all sold.
In fact, this is not the first time Jay Chou has entered the NFT. In October 2021, Fang Wenshan cooperated with art agency Soka Art to launch Fang Wenshan X Jay Chou's co-brand limited edition "Punk Cat Sting" (blue and white porcelain model) doll, and attached NFT anti-counterfeiting certification.
Because of Jay Chou, the world's largest NFT trading platform OpenSea was once down; also because of Jay Chou, many fans heard about and contacted NFT for the first time. In the mouths of investors in Phanta Bear NFT, Jay Chou is not only the king of Chinese music, but also incarnated as "The King of NFT".
But none of this pursuit has stopped phanta Bear's decline. On January 18, 2022, the day of Zhou Dong's 43rd birthday, compared with the highest point, the average price of Phanta Bear NFT has shrunk by nearly half, and the trading volume is less than 1/10 of the high point, with an average loss of 76,000 yuan per Phanta Bear NFT. "Leeks cut too fast, like a tornado." Some fans commented on this.
Upstream News Comprehensive Southern Metropolis Daily, China Fund News, Daily Economic News