Eight days ago, a crypto user wouldn’t have envisaged that a keyboard mishap and a sniper bot would make him lose over $1m within a few minutes. But that’s what happened to Twitter user @Dino_Dealer last Thursday.
The Pain Of A Huge Loss
Dinodealer had wanted to list a rock as 445 ETH (about $1.2m) but instead typed 445 WEI (about $0.0012) when listing the rock. Almost immediately, he listed it, a bot snipe picked it up, and there is no reversal on transactions made by bot snipes. He was so pained that he tweeted that “my entire net worth has gone with a click.”
How's your week?
Mine? I just erroneously listed @etherrock #44 for 444 wei instead of 444 eth🤦♂️
Bot sniped it in the same block and trying to flip for 234 eth
In one click my entire net worth of ~$1 million dollars, gone
Is there any hope?
Am I GMI?
Can snipers show mercy? pic.twitter.com/yq9Itb2Ukb
— CoinMarketCope (@coinmarketcope) March 10, 2022
Historically, bot snipes were initially used on the eBay auction site. Potential buyers use this tool to time their bids to the last second on eBay. Nowadays, they’ve found usefulness on NFT marketplaces. Anyone can get a bot sniper from freelance sites (particularly Upwork) for as low as $250, and these tools work perfectly on the OpenSea NFT marketplace.
By default, blockchains are immutable and can’t detect mistakes like mistaking ETH for WEI. Such errors are usually costly. Like any other sphere of life, anyone can make mistakes. Only that mistakes are more expensive when making crypto transactions.
Recently, a BTC user sent 0.25 BTC to the wrong receiver address because he failed to double-check the address. It seems DinoDealer has gotten over his loss as he shared the address of the bot snipe. Also, he changed his Twitter profile pic and added a crying emoji to his handle to trivialize the situation.
Minor Errors With Severe Consequences
In the last 30 days, many crypto users have shared details of how their minor mistakes have resulted in dire consequences. Cases of errors resulting in the loss of cryptos worth millions of dollars are becoming more common daily. A Coinbase white hacker recently uncovered a mistake in the Coinbase Pro code which could have caused severe negative ramifications.
Similarly, 59 ETH went missing during the launch of the WTF token due to the actions of frantic bot trading. The loss was attributed to poor management of the liquidity pool. Many Twitter users have attempted to cheer up DinoDealer, with one of them sending him an image of a geologist salesman.
Computer Malware Results In 0.250 BTC Loss
A BTC holder recently lost 0.250 BTC because of the malware running on his computer without his knowledge. Louis Nel (a crypto holder and Twitter user), shared the event’s details as it happened to one of his friends.
A friend sent 0.255BTC from his bitcoin wallet to an exchange.
He copied and pasted the wallet address on his computer.
After 4 hours he was worried when the funds did not arrive at the exchange…
— Louis Nel 🇿🇦 (@LouisNel) March 14, 2022
Nel revealed that the malware on his friend’s computer intercepted the BTC he wanted to send from Kraken to VALR (another crypto exchange based in South Africa). Unknown to him, the malware had intercepted the copied and pasted a new wallet address. Nel’s friend became more apprehensive when VALR stated that the receiver’s wallet address didn’t belong to them. While Nel’s friend has removed the malware, he remains worried that his windows ten laptop may have been compromised forever.
