A Crypto Toad NFT, typically valued at less than $1,000, astonishingly fetched 1,055 ETH, equivalent to $1.6 million, in a transaction that has raised concerns about potential money laundering. This unusual sale took place on the NFT marketplace OpenSea; an anonymous buyer acquired the NFT for over 1000 times its normal price.
The Crypto Toadz collection consists of nearly 7,000 NFTs depicting whimsical toads. It gained popularity during the 2021 NFT frenzy, and during that period, it amassed a trading volume of over $38 million within just 10 days of its launch. However, these toad NFTs usually sold for less than $1,000.
This massive surge in price, from $1,600 to over $1.6 million, has raised suspicions of wash trading, a tactic used to legitimize illegally acquired funds by conducting transactions with inflated prices.
Wash trading typically involves a series of transactions aimed at “cleaning” unlawfully gained money and funneling it into the legitimate economy.
In this case, the transaction was funded from a wallet linked to the Ethereum mixing service Tornado Cash, known for anonymizing transaction sources.
This sale is even more suspicious because the same NFT had changed hands just two weeks earlier for a mere 0.95 ETH, roughly $1,600. Furthermore, the recipient wallet had received 1,115 ETH of unknown origin just days earlier.
The substantial disparity in price has ignited discussions on crypto Twitter. While some suggest it might have been a simple “fat finger mistake,” others contend that it bears the hallmarks of deliberate wash trading and money laundering.
Oh geez this doesn’t look good. A Cryptoadz NFT sells for $1,660,000 (1,055 ETH).
There were $41,500 in fees paid to OpenSea which makes me think it was a fat-finger error.
The floor price for the Toadz is 0.5 ETH.
ht @gangnam_eth pic.twitter.com/h8bPTCj2la
— NFTstats.eth (@punk9059) October 9, 2023
Tornado Cash has already faced scrutiny for enabling criminals to obscure transactions, resulting in U.S. sanctions.
Notably, in September 2022, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash on allegations that the platform was used to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in hacking proceeds, with ties to groups like the Lazarus Group and APT38, both affiliated with North Korea.
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