Can attacks on OpenSea backfire Ethereum and benefit Solana

The OpenSea CEO on 20 February announced an ongoing investigation for a phishing attack on 32 OpenSea users. Reportedly, $3 million of NFTs have been stolen. It is to be noted that this growing fear of exploits has become menacing for the NFT marketplace.

Another OpenSea problem

According to CEO Devin Finzer, the affected users ended up signing a malicious payload from the attacker. And, ended up losing their NFTs. Furthermore, it’s been four hours since the attacker was last active. OpenSea is continuing their investigation and have explicitly stated that the attack was in no way originated from OpenSea. And, none of the Opensea services were responsible in any way.

This is the second time in February that OpenSea users have had to witness losses. In a recent exploit in January some $1.3 million worth of NFTs were sold due to unsanctioned listing at older prices. The fix that OpenSea released in a follow-up further resulted in $14,000 worth of NFTs stolen in a similar fashion. 

Now, although OpenSea is the home of NFTs, instances of exploit combined with the always high gas fees of Ethereum will be a matter of concern for users. 

Curiously, February is already witnessing 44% lower NFT sales. The 1.4 million NFTs sold managed to fetch around $2.7 billion. This shows that either the traders may not be pushing for NFTs right at this moment or that they might be looking elsewhere.

Opensea monthly volume | Source: Dune – AMBCrypto

Onto Solana?

The above-mentioned instances could result in NFT developers and traders moving to Solana which has the second biggest NFT marketplace. Notably Magic Eden, Solanart, Solsea, and Alpha combined have sold over 3.3 million NFTs in just the last 20 days. 

Solana NFT Marketplaces | Source: Dune – AMBCrypto

Additionally, Solana is significantly more capable than Ethereum considering the transaction speeds, transaction costs, and the recent growth in value and dApps on the network. BitMEX even predicted Solana would end up overtaking Ethereum in 2022.

This does not mean that Solana NFT marketplaces would end up running OpenSea out of business.

OpenSea will continue to remain the biggest marketplace, but such situations serve as a butterfly effect which could over time lead to Solana receiving higher preference. And, at the end of the day, it will be Ethereum that will have to bear the brunt.