A recent purchase of a non-fungible token (NFT), known as CrypToadz, for an unbelievable 1,055 Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) has taken the crypto community by storm. This tremendous amount is equal to $1.6 million, whilst the average price of the said NFT was around $1000. This development was spotted on the OpenSea market on October 9th. Every single CrypToadz NFT is based on a digital artwork of a warty amphibious creature, out of the 6969 units minted by the mystery digital artist Gremplin. The seller of this NFT has managed to create quite the buzz during the recent NFT boom as seen on OpenSea, having achieved a trading volume of 12,000 ETH (~$38 million) within the first 10 days of its launch. However, the abnormal price of the aforementioned NFT has raised questions among the crypto space, with speculations of money laundering running rampant. Just two weeks prior, the very same token had only been acquired for a fraction of the price of 0.95 ETH (approx. $1600).

Due to security features and the mysteriously anonymous identity of the buyer remain unknown, many have speculated that the purchase had been funded by a digital wallet, which utilizes the Ethereum coin mixing service - Tornado Cash - to anonymize and obfuscate any and all transaction data. And although some have accounted the market excess as a mere “fat finger mistake”, the extreme disparities in price are still deemed worthy of suspicion as strategies such as wash trading may have taken place.

The said service, Tornado Cash, had been targeted by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) just this August due to its relationship with the laundering of ill-gotten funds and the extreme popularity among fraudsters. Unfortunately, these sanctions were unable to completely shut down the usage of Tornado Cash, as most recently seen in the July 2023 case of AnubisDAO’s $60 million stolen Ether, which had been funneled through said service over the course of several transactions.



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