Automation Works…Until it Doesn’t (A Cautionary Tale)

TL;DR

• Hanwe Chang (aka ‘hanwe.eth’) noticed someone was copying his bids on the NFT marketplace, Blur. So, in his words, he “decided to trick them.”

• He set up a second account, transferred 12 Azuki NFTs, and made a ‘dummy bid’ of 50ETH (~$91,000USD) on each NFT with his hanwe.eth account.

• The bot saw this, and beat the bid, winning each for about 10x what they were worth.

• The bot’s owner, “elizab.eth,” then came forward on Twitter, claiming the “funds were stolen form [their] bot.”

Full Story

Last week we wrote about how “automation works…until it doesn’t.”

Folks, it’s happened again.

It happened on a much smaller scale than the Curve exploit – this time people on Twitter X called it “PvP” (i.e. player vs. player; NFT trader vs. NFT trader).

Here’s what happened:

Hanwe Chang (aka ‘hanwe.eth’) noticed someone was copying his bids on the NFT marketplace, Blur.

So, in his words, he “decided to trick them.”

He set up a second account, transferred 12 Azuki NFTs, and made a ‘dummy bid’ of 50ETH (~$91,000USD) on each NFT with his hanwe.eth account.

The bot saw this, and beat the bid, winning each for about 10x what they were worth.

The bot’s owner, “elizab.eth,” then came forward on Twitter, claiming the “funds were stolen form [their] bot.”

The two traders are discussing the possibility of a bounty and elizab.eth said Chang could keep 10% of the funds if he agreed to return the rest.

If that doesn’t work out, elizab.eth has said the matter will be taken to court.

As we said folks, automation works…until it doesn’t.

Stay safe out there!