Funny Money: Crypto Investor Accidentally Sells $300,000 'Bored Ape' NFT for $3,000

One crypto investor made the mistake of a lifetime this week when he sold a “Bored Ape” NFT for $3,000 instead of the planned $300,000. The 99 percent discount on his sale was due to a misplaced decimal point.

CNET reports that an investor in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by the name of Max (or maxnaut) listed a “Bored Ape” NFT for sale on Saturday. Max describes himself as a “solo-traveller, bored ape, marketing agency owner & NFT investor,” and planned to sell his NFT for 75 ether, or around $300,000.

Instead, Max accidentally typed 0.75 ether, around $3,000. Before he could correct the issue, someone purchased the NFT, seemingly using a bot programmed to buy undervalued listings.

“How’d it happen? A lapse of concentration I guess,” Max told CNET. “I list a lot of items every day and just wasn’t paying attention properly. I instantly saw the error as my finger clicked the mouse but a bot sent a transaction with over 8 eth [$34,000] of gas fees so it was instantly sniped before I could click cancel, and just like that, $250k was gone.”

The NFT Max sold belongs to a particularly popular collection. There are 10,000 Bored Apes in existence, each with different attributes that create a portrait of a unique monkey. Bored Ape NFTs are part of an exclusive club with owners such as Jimmy Fallon and Steph Curry among its ranks.

Max does appear to be taking the issue in stride though, stating: “Sometimes you fuck up, make a bad buy, out of gas fail, send Eth to the wrong wallet or fat-finger a listing. It’s going to happen. But, letting it occupy your mind for even one second after you can no longer affect the outcome is purely hurting yourself twice.”