Smart Investor Bought $1.5M NFT for $23K. Stroke of Luck or Brilliant Heist?

• An investor bought a $1.5M NFT for $23K, and a bidder is already offering $1.5M for it. This means a 60x return on investment in one day.
• A shareholder tried to stop the purchase butmiscalculated the counterbid. Eventually, he called it fair game' and denied that it was a theft.'
• The SEC sent a Wells notice to OpenSea, stating that it could take enforcement action against the NFT marketplace.
• The Digital Chamber (the largest blockchain trade association) called for Congress to clarify that NFTs are not securities.

The blockchain istheland of opportunity, as one NFT investor found out today. He bought a famous NFT (CryptoPunk #2386) valued at 600 $ETH (~$1.5M) for 10 $ETH (~$23K).

Was it a theft or a lucky chain of events?

While some cried heist,' one of the NFT's original shareholders (who tried to stop the purchase) called it agg' for the new owner and a smart play.

All of this is happening in the backdrop of US elections and suspected SEC action against NFTs. Will NFT ownership be put at risk?

Let's discuss the fortunate NFT buy and what the SEC might have in store for the industry.

Forgotten NFT Is Unknowingly Sold for 1.53% of Its Value

CryptoPunk #2386, a famous Ethereum NFT valued at 600 $ETH (~$1.5M), changed owners today. Despite its sky-high price tag, the savvy investor managed to buy it for 1.53% of its value - mere scraps in comparison.

How did the purchase happen, and how was it possible? A so-called shotgun' buyout is where a shareholder proposes a buyout price, and if no one else counterbids, they can buy the asset after 14 days.

That's precisely what happened with CryptoPunk #2386 - the investor bid 0.001 $ETH per share (10 $ETH for all 10K shares of the NFT), and the 14-day counter started, to no one's knowledge.

Another shareholder (Gmoney) eventually found out and issued a counterbid. But he miscalculated, a fatal mistake that completed the sale.

TropoFarmer, an X user, made the perfect analogy to this entire story in a public post. He claimed theinitial bid raised no one's awareness, and only robots' (the blockchain) were listening.

I love the visual of this punk sale:

dude walks into a long abandoned, robot-operated art gallery.

he shouts into the air that he wants to buy one of its most valuable assets for 1% of its actual value. nobody hears his intent except for the robots.

he waits 1 week.

the robots perfunctorily hand it over, paying no mind to the major discrepancy in purchase price and value.

he walks out with the piece.

(soon) he flips it for a 50x. robots await further instruction.X User

The new buyer's identity is unknown, but someone offered to buy the NFT for 600 $ETH ($1.5M), a 60x return on investment (ROI).

While some called this a heist,' the shareholder who miscalculated his counterbid called it fair game' and gg to the new owner.'He emphasized the importance of sticking by the rules, and if you don't like them, you probably shouldn't be in the NFT space.

While that's certainly true and an admirable position in this case, it could also be the reason why NFT (and crypto) adoption is at a slow crawl.

Whether this was planned in any way or if it truly was a one-in-a-million lucky chance, we'll never know. The buyer became $1.475M richer over the night, and that's all that matters.

Is the SEC Targeting NFTs?

Every NFT owner in a 15-block radius is shivering just by hearing SEC.' Is the crypto nemesis targeting NFTs now?

OpenSea (an NFT marketplace) received a Wells notice from the SEC in August, stating that the organization could take enforcement action.

Devin Finzer (OpenSea CEO) claimed the notice was a move into uncharted territory.' This was despite the NFT taking action against other NFT companies in the past (like Dapper Labs)

The Digital Chamber is calling for Congress to do something about crypto legislation and define NFTs as consumer products instead of security token offerings.

While it's uncertain how the SEC will proceedand whether they'll clarify the regulatory landscape surrounding NFTs, it's a spicy situation nonetheless.

Conclusion - Until the SEC Acts, NFTs Remain Hot Products

Today's mega-profitable NFT buy that brought an investor a 60x ROI is rare, but the NFT ecosystem is full of rags-to-riches stories.

While waiting for the SEC to act, the marketplace is constantly moving, with players exchanging NFTs left and right.

We'll see what happens next, especially with the upcoming US presidential elections.

References

• The Digital Chamber X Post About the SEC Action on OpenSea (X)
• X Post About the $1.5M NFT Sale (X)
• Dapper Labs' $4M settlement reaffirms NBA NFTs aren't securities: CEO (Cointelegraph)
• Rags to Riches story of Brittany Pierre all through NFT marketplace (Blockchain Magazine)

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