NFT Colossus Opensea Reports Major Data Breach

Key Points

• OpenSea user email addresses have been leaked to a third party by a staff member of CRM software Customer.io.
• OpenSea has subsequently warned its users to expect phishing emails.
• CRM software continues to be a weak spot for crypto platform data breaches.

The world’s largest online marketplace for Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) Opensea, whose valuation was pegged at a massive $13 billion as recently as January, on Wednesday warned its users to be wary of email phishing after a data breach. Apparently, a member of staff at email vendor platform Customer.io shared the email addresses of OpenSea users and newsletter subscribers with an outside party.

“If you have shared your email with OpenSea in the past, you should assume you were impacted,” the OpenSea warned. According to crypto data platform Dune analytics, over 1.8 million users have made at least one NFT purchase through OpenSea on the Ethereum network alone.

OpenSea said that it has launched an investigation into the incident with Customer.io and has reported it to law enforcement. The leaking of OpenSea’s email list is the latest of a string of major crypto platform data leaks where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software (a category in which Customer.io falls) has been the weak point.

Back in March, users of BlockFi, Swan Bitcoin, Circle and NYDIG had their information leaked after a CRM platform called Hubspot was hacked.

Moreover, this isn’t the first time OpenSea has fallen victim to an attack. Back in May, OpenSea’s Discord channel was hacked and used to spread phishing advertisements for a scam NFT mint. Meanwhile, back in January, OpenSea had to reimburse its users for approximately $1.8 million in funds after platform hackers managed to secure a number of NFTs for well below their market value.

Further Reading: Identifying Crypto Scams and General Advice on Avoiding Them

State of the NFT Market

NFT valuations remain mired within a deep bear market, as crypto prices more broadly remain under heavy selling pressure as 2022 draws to a close. According to NFT data analytics website NFT Price Floor, the minimum required to purchase a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT was around $88,000 on Thursday. That’s down well over four-fold from the record high price floor of over $430,000 reached at the start of April.

BAYC’s collection of 10,000 cartoon ape NFTs currently ranks as the most valuable NFT collection in the world, with major celebrities and crypto investors included amon the owners. Similarly, the price floor to get your hands on a CryptoPunks NFT (CryptoPunks is the second most valuable collection NFT collection) was last around $67,000, down from around $400,000 last November.

Investors have been de-risking and selling assets they view to be more speculative (including crypto and NFTs) in recent months amid a surge in global inflation that has weighed on growth and prompted a major hawkish shift from global central banks. The subsequent tightening of financial conditions (i.e. higher yields and interest rates) has worsened downside economic risks and raised the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding/speculative assets (again, like crypto and NFTs).