wutaner

Eight legacy NFT collections are now preserved on Ethereum. Over the past few days I’ve published the story, technical details, and conservation journal for each one. Here’s the full index ↓

Binance estimates a $6.3B impact from a security breach that may have started with a single engineer's compromised laptop. Think about that. Billions of dollars may have been compromised without breaking Bitcoin, Ethereum, or even stealing the private keys. One engineer's computer may have been enough. As an engineer, I tend to think in terms of failure points. Every additional system, every intermediary, every person with privileged access introduces another potential point of failure. That's why I prefer self-custody for my long-term BTC and ETH. When I hold my own coins, I need to protect my private keys, devices, and signing process. I also rely on the security of the Bitcoin or Ethereum network. That's already a serious responsibility. When I leave those coins on a CEX, I still need to protect my account, credentials, devices, and authentication. My personal security responsibilities haven't disappeared. But now I've added the exchange's software, servers, signing infrastructure, internal permissions, employees, custody operations, and financial health. A single failure somewhere in that system could affect my assets, even if I did everything right. Bitcoin ETFs add another structure of trust. I still have to secure my brokerage account, while depending on the broker, fund manager, custodian, and financial system. BTC treasury stocks introduce even more variables: corporate management, debt, dilution, and stock market risks. These aren't identical to CEX risks, but they are additional layers between me and the underlying Bitcoin. AI is making attacks on people and software increasingly sophisticated and scalable. The more systems we depend on, the more opportunities we give attackers. Of course, self-custody isn't risk-free. Losing a key or signing a malicious transaction can be devastating. And for some people, professional custody may genuinely be safer. But for assets I intend to hold for years, I want the shortest possible chain of trust. I hope Binance recovers the funds and makes every customer whole. This isn't an attack on Binance. It's a reminder that even the largest institutions can be vulnerable through a single human or machine. Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. In an era where every day feels like another zero-day, the last fortress of crypto may be the blockchain itself. My keys. My responsibility. My coins.

I spent over a year preserving 8 legacy NFT collections fully on Ethereum, including BAYC and Pudgy Penguins. Now I'd love to hear what the NFT community thinks. Should NFT images be fully onchain?

Credits → Statements → $BALANCE ⇄ BARS

Yesterday’s ApeSTR exploit created something nobody expected: a BAYC void that also works as an Ape swap shop. The contract still holds 21 BAYC, but all 21 have lost their sale records. ApeSTR can no longer sell them through its normal functions, and there’s no upgrade or owner rescue. 1. A growing void. Those 21 Apes form a minimum locked reserve. Anyone can send more BAYC directly into the contract, increasing the number of unlisted Apes. But the existing 21 can’t simply be bought back through the strategy. 2. An Ape swap shop. Here’s the interesting part. The same exploit still allows someone to retrieve a specific Ape from the void. You put in a BAYC you no longer want, use another BAYC as a temporary catalyst, and take out the exact Ape you want. The catalyst comes back to you. One Ape enters, another leaves. The number stays the same, but the Apes inside can keep changing. 3. A different kind of burn. Next time @osseneth wants to burn another BAYC, why not send it to ApeSTR instead of the dead address? It would leave the normal market without being destroyed. Someone could swap it out someday, bringing that Ape back into circulation. ApeSTR was built to trade Apes. Its own bug has now turned it into a strange permanent reserve where the occupants can change, but the original 21 slots can’t be emptied through normal sales. The Apes can disappear from the market without disappearing forever. @0xQuit @Rhynotic

On October 27, someone bought my BAYC #9765 for 6.23 ETH and sold it about two hours later for 6.01 WETH, receiving 5.9499 WETH after marketplace fees. I had already claimed its Mudwater allocation, so I followed the transactions to understand what happened in between. The buyer used a vulnerability in ApeStrategy’s contract to cycle BAYC NFTs out of its pool, claim their Mudwater allocations, and exchange them for the next ape. 9765 served as a reusable asset in that process. Purchase: etherscan.io/tx/0x097ed13c0e… The buyer also purchased BAYC 5611 for 6.25 ETH and interacted with the pool through a self-deployed contract named Arb. The first successful exchange makes the mechanism clear. Before the transaction, the buyer held 9765 and 5611, while the pool held 1012. Afterward, the buyer held 9765 and 1012, and the pool held 5611. The buyer then redeemed 1012’s allocation of 10 Mudwater packs. Next, the already-claimed 1012 went back into the pool in exchange for 1380. After claiming that allocation, the buyer moved on to 1561, and continued. 9765 repeatedly moved in and out as the supporting asset. First exchange: etherscan.io/tx/0xba21a8e4d0… So where was the vulnerability? ApeStrategy’s buyTargetNFT function accepts a caller-supplied target and calldata, then executes the external call from the pool itself. Afterward, it checks that the pool’s BAYC balance increased by one and that the specified expectedId now belongs to the pool. Those conditions do not establish that the pool retained its existing NFTs. If one ape leaves and two enter during the external call, the net balance change is still +1. If one of the incoming apes is expectedId, both checks pass—even though an existing asset has been removed. The call’s authority matters too. Because the pool executes the external call, a call to the BAYC contract runs with the pool as the caller. The buyer’s Arb contract used the NFT receiver callback to coordinate the transfers. 9765 temporarily entered the pool to satisfy the checks and was subsequently recovered. There was also an accounting component. The pool calculates an NFT’s purchase cost from the decrease in its ETH balance across the external call, then uses that cost to set its resale price. During the callback, Arb invoked processTokenTwap, triggering a separate ETH expenditure inside that accounting window. That expenditure affected the apparent NFT purchase cost. The actual events recorded 9765 with a purchase cost of 6 wei and a resale price of 7 wei, after which it was recovered. The buy and sell functions had nonReentrant protection, but this path did not require recursively entering the same purchase function. The external call could move NFTs, while the callback could reach processTokenTwap and affect the balance used for accounting. Pool contract: etherscan.io/address/0x9EbF9… Buyer’s Arb contract: etherscan.io/address/0xa395b… Across the sequence, the buyer completed 21 successful Mudwater redemptions, burning 10 Totems each time: allocations corresponding to 210 packs across 21 different BAYCs. In the final exchange, 9573 returned to the pool and the buyer recovered the original 5611. The buyer then sold both 9765 and 5611. Final exchange: etherscan.io/tx/0x7088008b2f… Summing the BAYC transfers across these operations, the pool’s net change for every token ID was zero. The original apes were back, but their Mudwater entitlements had been consumed. This does not mean every other piece of contract state was restored. The two initial apes cost 12.48 ETH and returned 12.0384 WETH after marketplace fees—a trading loss of 0.4416 ETH, before gas and claim costs. I verified the Ethereum-side redemptions, not the packs’ eventual Solana-side delivery or sale proceeds, so I am not claiming a final profit figure. The evidence points to an exploit of ApeStrategy’s external-call and asset-accounting logic. It does not show repeated Mudwater claims for the same ape. @0xQuit, @Rhynotic this is a concrete NFT custody failure mode: someone can temporarily obtain an NFT, consume its one-time entitlement, and return the original NFT. The final inventory can contain exactly the same token IDs while the economic rights attached to them have changed. This poor BAYC #9765:

OpenSea collects its 1% platform fee, while the creator's 5% royalty can simply be switched OFF. Blur started the race to zero royalties, and OpenSea followed. Now creators who want enforceable royalties are being pushed toward ERC-721C, which introduces additional transfer validation and marketplace restrictions. Chimpers has already migrated. Invisible Friends is preparing to do the same, even though its original contract already declares a 5% royalty through ERC-2981. Think about this: NFT projects are being pushed to abandon their original contracts, break continuity with years of onchain history, and introduce additional transfer restrictions just to collect royalties that were already declared onchain. And these extra dependencies carry real risks. Just last month, a vulnerability in Limit Break's Payment Processor V2 exposed thousands of NFTs, with @0xQuit leading a whitehat rescue of 23,155 NFTs. The vulnerability was in the payment processor, not ERC-721C itself, but it highlights the risks of additional trading infrastructure. All of this is unnecessary for sales on OpenSea. ERC-2981 already provides royalty information. OpenSea can enforce those royalties on its own marketplace without forcing entire collections to migrate. Blur and its farmers nearly killed the NFT market. Now, with its frontend shutting down, Blur itself is the one dying. @opensea, it's time to take responsibility and start undoing the damage. Honor ERC-2981 royalties on your marketplace. No opt-out. Stop making creators sacrifice simplicity, continuity and decentralization just to get paid.

A hardware wallet should protect your assets, not put your home address at risk. Once it's delivered, manufacturers should delete the buyer's name, phone number and shipping address. The Keystone leak is another reminder: privacy should be the default in crypto, not a luxury.

大阪，2 核 12G、200G 硬盘。 谢谢甲骨文提供的免费云服务器！已经跑上了 Oncave keeper、日常机器人、私人网盘和监控，我会好好利用它。😄 花了 10 分钟来申请的。