How a collector accidentally destroyed an NFT worth Rs 1 crore: 'No one’s fault but my own'

admitted that because he is so unfamiliar with the world of NFTs, he should have had someone guide him. (Image credit: @vitalitygrowth/Twitter)

An NFT collector recently destroyed his CryptoPunk #685 -- an NFT that he had bought weeks ago for 77 ether or about Rs 1 crore -- by accident while he was being too careful trying to wrap it.

Wrapping is a process that allows NFTs to be traded on Ethereum marketplaces such as OpenSea or Rarible, and while Brandon Riley was following a step-by-step guide on how to complete the transaction, he accidentally sent his NFT to a burn address. Narrating the story on Twitter, Riley said that the accident caused him to lose a third of his net worth in a single transaction.

A private key is a password used to access the funds held inside a digital wallet and a burn address is a virtual wallet that doesn’t have a private key, so no one can access it. Such wallets usually used to permanently destroy NFTs, often to create scarcity and to potentially cause the price of similar NFTs to rise.

"Today I accidentally burned a cryptopunks NFT trying to wrap punk 685. I was so focused on following the instructions exactly, that I slipped up, destroying a third of of my net worth in a single transaction," Riley tweeted. "Please keep in mind I’m not a dev (developer), not at all familiar with these contracts, and don’t really understand how wrapped punks work."

Read more: Tiffany launches CryptoPunk pendants for Rs 4 lakh. Here's why it's so expensive

He also admitted that because he is so unfamiliar with the world of NFTs, he should have had someone guide him. "In hindsight it’s very easy to see all of the mistakes I made," Riley tweeted. "This is truly a devastating mistake for me. But I did this myself, and it is no one’s fault but my own. Both the beauty and the curse of self-custody."

Two days later, however, a crypto enthusiast did manage to resurrect Punk 685 although as an ordinal inscribed on a satoshi.

Huge thanks to @olliesblog for being so kind and selfless in resurrecting Punk 685 for me. He now lives on the Bitcoin blockchain as an ordinal, inscribed on a satoshi from over a decade ago! https://t.co/5i1n14HIwe pic.twitter.com/4hVPxxcb4Y

— Brandon Riley (@vitalitygrowth) March 27, 2023

Ordinal inscriptions, similar to NFTs, are digital assets inscribed on a satoshi -- the lowest denomination of a Bitcoin.

Read more: Meta to wind down NFTs on platforms amid crypto bust