The Ethscriptions protocol and its primary marketplace fell victim to a hacking incident, with the theft of 202 Ethscription. Ethscriptions introduced a unique way to create Ethereum assets by leveraging transaction “calldata” to record non-financial data on the blockchain.
The protocol itself and other applications built on the technology remain unaffected, Lehman, the creator of Ethsciptions clarified. However, a substantial number of Ethscriptions listed on Ethscriptions.com suffered theft, as reported by Lehman on Twitter.
The stolen Ethscriptions were linked to approximately 123 individual addresses, marking a considerable loss for those impacted.
Though the exact value of the stolen digital objects remains unclear, data from NFT marketplace OpenSea indicates some Ethscriptions have previously sold for as much as 5 Ethereum (approximately $9,600).
Lehman expressed his distress over the incident, particularly emphasizing the theft of Ethscription #56, which was considered rare and valuable. The marketplace’s purpose was to serve as an example for others building support for Ethscriptions, but the exploit disrupted those plans.
Taking responsibility for the failure, Lehman traced the exploit to a smart contract co-created with Michael Hirsch from Indelible Labs. A code snippet unintentionally allowed people to withdraw Ethscriptions they didn’t own from the marketplace.
As a distinct form of NFT, Ethscriptions are stored in transaction-level data, setting them apart from tokens issued on Ethereum through smart contracts like the ERC-721 standard. Over 474,000 Ethscriptions have been created so far, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard.
Despite the setback, Lehman remains determined to relaunch the Ethscriptions.com marketplace after implementing necessary changes to the protocol. He praised those impacted as the “earliest adopters” of the Ethscriptions protocol.
The emergence of Ethscriptions followed the rise of Ordinals, a protocol used to create NFT-like assets on Bitcoin, contributing to the experimentation with the crypto’s oldest coin.
On July 14, Lehman raised awareness about the exploit. Days later, a disclaimer about the impacted state of the marketplace remains. A warning on Ethscriptions.com reads, “There is an issue with the marketplace contract! Withdraw your Ethscriptions and do not create new listings!”
