Solana NFT marketplace MagicEden suffers exploit as fake NFTs appear as part of verified collections
|- Solana-based NFT creators, and collectors have been exploited due to the emergence of fake NFTs.
- MagicEden stated that the issues had been fixed, and less than ten collections were impacted by the exploit.
- NFT transactions were on a decline across the crypto space throughout Q3 and Q4 2022, but December noted a jump in NFT sales by 246%.
There has been a significant increase in interest in Solana NFTs over the past few months, leading to an influx of new traders and buyers. The biggest NFT marketplace on the blockchain, MagicEden, has been the biggest receiver of this growing interest. Naturally, the marketplace also became the target of scammers.
Solana NFTs suffer from fraud
Solana NFT traders noted the appearance of fraudulent non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from famous collections like ABC on the biggest marketplace on the network, MagicEden. The fake NFTs were being sold as part of the collections for high values despite being worth next to nothing.
Upon discovery, MagicEden took action and brought the exploit to an end before the situation got worse. The NFT marketplace stated that they had fixed the issue of fake NFTs being listed on collection pages as well as the appearance of fake NFT transactions.
Adding to the same, MagicEden confirmed that less than ten collections were impacted by the exploit and that an incident review will be published soon.
Metaplex, a Solana-based NFT minting and development platform, announced that the problem of fake NFTs was not evident on their platform The platform further stated,
“There is an on-going bug on Magic Eden that allows an attacker to list and sell fake NFTs that are not part of a creator’s verified collection… To avoid this, marketplaces should check (a) that the collection address matches and is verified OR (b) that the creator addresses match and all are verified. We recommend the former.”
NFTs register a surprise jump
NFTs across the crypto space had been registering a month-on-month decline in sales throughout 2022. While December was expected to follow suit, a sudden increase in transactions noted the monthly sales skyrocketing by 246%.
NFT sales monthly volume
The end-of-year sales for the month of December pushed the total volume from $410 million to $1.43 billion, marking the highest sales in about seven months. At the moment, January 2023 is expected to pull in just $300 million. However, a sudden spike in interest might increase the final figure.
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