NFT investor accidentally burns $135K CryptoPunk trying to borrow money

cointelegraph.com:

A nonfungible token (NFT) from the CryptoPunks collection worth 77 Ether (ETH) was sent to a burn address to be permanently destroyed. However, the collector intended to borrow some money against it to buy another NFT.

NFT collector Brandon Riley added CryptoPunk #685 to his collection on March 13 by paying 77 ETH, hoping to hold it for the long term.

Now feels like an appropriate time to introduce #BAYC 586 to #Punk 685 (acquired a week ago). Hope to hold both for a decade… LGF! pic.twitter.com/SLb68rY6MR

As a seasoned investor, Riley knew the importance of procuring new NFTs right before crypto markets took off into a new bull market. As a result, he decided to borrow some money against CryptoPunk #685 by using a popular technique known as wrapping.

I did do the first part with my own address I’m step 2. But then when I got to step 5 the burn address was the one listed under “9. proxyInfo” and I was told to follow the directions exactly, so I did. I just shouldn’t have attempted this on my own I guess.

While going through the unfamiliar process of wrapping NFTs, Riley accidentally sent the asset to a burn address — which permanently deleted the NFT from circulation, as shown below.

“I was told to follow the directions exactly, so I did,” explained Riley, but in the process, he ended up losing 77 ETH, which was worth $135,372.16. He explained:

While members of Crypto Twitter believed that the NFT collector must have had “deep pockets,” Riley contradicted the rumors by revealing that he had purchased CryptoPunk #685 through borrowed money.

“I just shouldn’t have attempted this on my own, I guess,” was Riley’s takeaway from the experience. On the other hand, Crypto Twitter also blamed confusing user interfaces and complex