A non-fungible token (NFT) trader appears to be bidding on a free NFT, buying it for 100 ether, currently worth $191,239, rather than nothing.
The token is part of NFT marketplace OpenSea’s Gemesis NFT series a free NFT commemorating the launch of OpenSea Pro on April 4. The trader's bid is 250,000% of the reserve price of 0.04 ETH.
OpenSea Pro is a market aggregator tailored for professional users, offering them what OpenSea calls a “substantially improved” suite of features, such as real-time cross-market data and advanced order books. While some believe the sale was a wash trade, Twitter user "0xSun" believes the sale happened on NFT marketplace Blur because a trader wanted to bid $100 but accidentally bid 100 ETH.
The Reddit user who posted about the sale was also skeptical of the wash trading theory, arguing that it was an open offer, available to anyone, and therefore too risky to do a wash trade as another trader or bot would snap up the offer quickly, So well above the reserve price. "I know you guys think it's a wash trade, but it's an open offer that anyone can accept, so hoping you looked at the offer sooner than anyone else at the time would be a pretty big risk."
Swash trading is a form of market manipulation where traders buy or sell assets to provide misleading information to the market. This practice is illegal in traditional stock markets, but is very common in NFT transactions.
OpenSea acquired NFT aggregator Gem for an undisclosed sum on April 25, 2022, and refined the platform to create OpenSea Pro. Only users who purchased at least one NFT on Gem before March 31st will be eligible to mint Gemesis NFTs, and the minting window will close on May 4th.
