An NFT drop of 10,000 COVID-conscious punks sold out within minutes while badly clogging the Ethereum network and costing users thousands in gas (transaction) fees.
Stockhead found that 626 users had paid more than US$1,000 in gas fees to mint the COVIDPunks, with one user even paying 2.27 Eth — US$6,400 — in a failed transaction.
This user paid 0.6 Eth to mint 16 COVIDPunks, plus another 1.7 Eth (US$4,915) in gas fees to ensure that their transaction went through.
Just spent 2K on fees to buy #covidpunks havent even looked at my collection yet because im disgusted with myself
— PLEBLO HIPPO ? (@PabloHippo) August 5, 2021
Lost 800$ of gas in out of gas failed transactions :/
— Romain™ (@Mspulco07) August 5, 2021
The sale around 4am AEST burned 526.26 Ethereum (US$1.5 million) in transaction fees under EIP-1559, the Ethereum Improvement Protocol that leads to a fraction of all gas fees being destroyed rather than paid to miners.
COVIDPunks had recently sold from from 0.08 to 0.55 Ether (US$222 to US$1,530) on Opensea this afternoon, although some were hoping for more.
Am I stupid for paying 2 $ETH for this and expecting to flip it for a 10x? #covidpunks @COVIDPunksNFT pic.twitter.com/i8oBtMklNH
— ??? (@FedKassad) August 5, 2021
“We are aware that a portion of our users lost gas due to failed transactions during our unexpectedly huge launch. We are looking into the problem, and will be working on a solution,” the team behind the project wrote on Discord.
We are humbled and overjoyed by COVIDPunks’ successful sale this morning. Know that the team is working diligently to figure out the gas issues, and will begin working on a solution soon. This will not be an overnight fix—we want to make things right.
Stay tuned!❤️ pic.twitter.com/B15yfrbhcr
— COVIDPunks? (@COVIDPunksNFT) August 5, 2021
The fact that they’re taking no responsibility for this, saying it’s not their fault, muting people for asking what’s going to be done and then having an army of supporters saying there’s nothing wrong despite there being 150+ eth in failed tx is incredibly concerning.
— Turtles (@RyGuyNFT) August 5, 2021
The “punks” are inspired by Cryptopunks, one of the first NFT drops on Ethereum back in 2017. But each character is wearing masks. Like the Cryptopunks, they are limited to 10,000 characters. They have different attributes such as vaccination status, mask type, sex and background colour.
There was no word yet on what had become of “patient zero” – the unique COVIDPunk who started the pandemic.
SNEAK PEAK #10: THE BIG ONE?
This intimidating Punk’s BLACK mask matches his black eyepatch. He is infected. And, he has a MYSTERIOUS, TOXIC GREEN rarity border. What could it mean??
He is… PATIENT ZERO. Out of 10,000 COVIDPunks, only ONE can be ZERO.??
See you @ launch! pic.twitter.com/7gO7g3Fa45
— COVIDPunks? (@COVIDPunksNFT) August 5, 2021
