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"CryptoPunk #9998" sold for $500 million? Owner artificially inflated price with lightning loan to attract attention

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"CryptoPunk #9998" sold for $500 million? Owner artificially inflated price with lightning loan to attract attention

Following the record-breaking bid of 2,500 ETH for "CryptoPunk #6046" previously, #9998 has set a new record with a bid of 124,457.07 ETH, worth over 530 million US dollars. However, this appears to be a staged marketing stunt as #9998 was promptly transferred back to the original owner's another address after the sale.

$530 Million, 14.7 Billion TWD NFT

According to CryptoPunks Bot records, CryptoPunk #9998 was sold successfully for 124,457.07 ETH at 07:50 on October 29th Taipei time:

This price significantly surpasses the transaction price of 4,200 ETH for CryptoPunk #7804 back in March this year. However, the crypto community quickly caught on. Ethereum developer and former smart contract lead at MakerDAO, Mariano Conti, pointed out that this was a play orchestrated by the NFT holder through a flash loan.

Flash Loan Price Manipulation

Mariano Conti outlined the process:

  • Buyer 0x9b gathered a flash loan of 124,457 ETH from multiple sources
  • Buyer 0x9b sent 124,457 ETH to the CryptoPunk contract
  • The CryptoPunk contract transferred 124,457 ETH to seller 0x8e
  • Seller 0x8e returned all ETH to buyer 0x9b
  • Buyer 0x9b repaid the flash loan

Fun? Price Manipulation?

According to Larva Labs, CryptoPunk #9998 ultimately moved back to the original address of the owner who acquired it on 8/11, but oddly, the final address transfer 0xef764b also included a flash loan contract that needed to be completed in the same block, as if to make it clear that this was a one-man show.

As shown in the image above, the owner purchased #9998 with 110 ETH on 8/11 and after some actions today, is now quoting it at 250,000 ETH.

Perhaps from the start, he intended to blatantly manipulate the price through a flash loan to increase the visibility of the NFT, #9998. According to on-chain data from the flash loan contract, the transaction cost was only 0.197435 ETH, approximately $858.

Now that CryptoPunk #9998 is well-known, it seems to be a cost-effective marketing stunt.

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