OpenSea launches new contract-clearing system to protect against recent bug

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

On Thursday evening, blockchain platform OpenSea launched a new system that will help users clear out unclaimed sale offers, set to roll out over the next two weeks. In an announcement post, CEO Devin Finzer described the changes as made to “ensure old, inactive listings expire.”

The move comes after a bug that allowed attackers to exploit old contracts to buy tokens for hundreds of thousands of dollars below market price. In one particularly attention-getting case in January, a Bored Ape Yacht Club token was purchased for less than $2,000 and resold immediately for over $192,000.

The bug was a result of how OpenSea’s platform interacts with the Ethereum blockchain, often saving gas fees by listing offers locally rather than coding them…

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