Today, a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT was sold for 115 DAI ($115), which is only a fraction of its current market value. Many believe the seller believed the offer was in ETH and not DAI. Others think it could have been part of a tax evasion scheme.
While we are used to seeing NFTs selling for large sums, it is sometimes the low-cost in-demand NFTs, especially those that are well below the average going rate, that really grab our attention. This Bored Ape Yacht Club is an exceptional example.
Bored Ape #835 was sold today for 115 DAI. DAI is a USD-pegged stablecoin. That amounts to only $115. The Ethereum FTC project is one the most sought-after and valuable collections available today. It currently has the cheapest-available Bored Ape at 106.8 Ethereum or approximately $358,000.
Many have speculated on social media that the seller believed the offer was for just 115 Ethereum (or $385,000 at the moment) rather than 115 DAI. The NFT was actually sold on OpenSea which also lists the USD amount of each cryptocurrency. It’d be hard to miss.
This transaction is made more suspicious by the fact that the seller ( Cchan.eth), also sold the Mutant Ape Yacht club NFT (#11670), for 25 DAI ($25). This is significantly lower than the current floor price of the Mutant Ape available on a marketplace which is 22.8ETH (over $76,000).
It’s possible for someone to make a mistake by selling a pair NFTs at $461,000 below their market value. However, it could also be the result a kind of exploit.
OpenSea recently addressed an exploit involving inactive market listings, which had not expired automatically. They paid millions to victims. OpenSea also blamed an external attack for users seeing NFTs in their wallets without their permission. Both of these issues were eventually resolved.
Others have speculated that these Bored Ape NFT sales could be part of a tax loss harvesting scheme, or an attempt to tax evasion, as noted NFT collector Artchick suggested via Twitter.
Tax loss harvesting refers to the sale of an NFT at a lower price than the original purchase price in order to offset capital gains. However, if the seller of the Ape NFTs also owns the unlabeled buyer’s wallet then they would theoretically only be spending transaction fees to hide a tax liability.
Decrypt has not yet been notified of any person claiming to be on either side of the NFT sales. It is also unclear who is behind either wallet.
However, the buyer of the Apes quickly redeemed the token ApeCoin (APE), which was given to Mutant Ape and Bored Ape owners. The buyer was awarded 12,136 APE that is approximately $181,000 at the time of writing.
