OpenSea Undergoes Contract Upgrade to Protect Against Recent Bug

NFT marketplace OpenSea is currently undergoing a contract upgrade that will help users clear out unclaimed sale offers in an effort to ‘ensure old, inactive listings expire,’ according to an official announcement on Thursday. Set to go live within 15 days, once the upgrade is complete, the platform will support cheap bulk order cancellation. It will also start support for smart contract wallet Argent and its multi-signature security. The move comes after a bug that allowed attackers to exploit old contracts that allowed them to snatch rare NFTs for well below market value. For instance, a Bored Ape Yacht Club token was recently purchased for less than $2,000 and resold immediately for over $192,000. How the New Upgrade Could Fix Against Recent Bugs? OpenSea allows users to sell their NFTs by setting a “list price” for potential buyers to see. If a buyer accepts that list price, the NFT is automatically transferred to them. However, if an owner wants to re-list an NFT for a higher sale price, they need to cancel the first listing, which costs a “gas fee” which usually costs thousands of dollars. To prevent this, some of the sellers resort to transferring the NFT to another wallet, then back to the original wallet. While this removes the listing from the information in OpenSea’s frontend display, the original listing remained active on the blockchain and could allegedly be found through the OpenSea API. The new system enables u...