Mistake or embezzlement? User pays $1.6 million for CrypToadz NFT.
One of CrypToadz's nonfungible tokens (NFTs), whose average price does not exceed $1,000, was bought for an impressive 1,055 bundles of Ethereum (wETH), worth $1.6 million.
The deal happened on October 9 on the OpenSea market. NFT stands for “Small, Warty, Powerful Creature”, one of 6,969 units by anonymous digital artist Gremplin. The CrypToadz Collection was launched in 2011. In 2021, it was the NFT boom season and exceeded 12,000 Ether (ETH) ($38 million) in trading volume in 10 days on the market.
The shopping wallet is backed by a Tornado Cash withdrawal wallet pic.twitter.com/aInHO8vNyG
— TexasHedge (@0xTexasHedge) October 9, 2023
However, the price an anonymous user paid for the NFT has raised questions among the community. Two weeks ago, this item was bought for 0.95 ETH (around $1,600), selling for a thousand times higher.
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What's more, the purchase was funded from a digital wallet that was part of the chain of transactions anonymously by Ethereum coin mixing service Tornado Cash. The new owner of CrypToadz NFT received 1,115.9 ETH ($1.6 million) on October 5th.
Although some X (Twitter) users chose to qualify the stranger's purchase during the transaction as a “fat finger mistake”, this could be an example of a bath business, a method of removing dubious origins through a long chain of negotiations and exchanges.
Tornado Cash is notorious for its popularity among fraudsters looking to launder their money. In August 2023, the United States' Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it would impose sanctions on crypto-miners suspected of gambling on illicit criminal proceeds. However, these sanctions did not completely stop the use of the mixer.
For example, in July 2023, nearly $60 million in Ether, stolen from AnubisDAO two years earlier, was moved by Tornado Cash. The person who owns 13,556 ETH transferred the money divided into 100 ETH transactions.
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