OpenSea announces new security features to protect users from NFT scams

Published at: June 14, 2022

One of the most popular crypto startups, OpenSea, has recently come under fire for stolen and plagiarized nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

In light of the growing number of NFT scams, OpenSea has announced the launch of a new feature that will automatically hide suspicious NFT transfers from view on their marketplace. This will help to protect users from being scammed and ensure that only legitimate transactions are visible.

According to a blog post on Monday, the new feature will automatically conceal suspicious NFT transfers to address key concerns around trust and safety on OpenSea.

OpenSea has recently been focusing on enhancing trust and safety on the platform. The NFT marketplace will make substantial investments in a variety of important areas for trust and safety, including theft prevention, IP infringement, scaling review and moderation, and reducing critical response times in high-touch settings, as per a recent blog by the project’s co-founder and CEO Derin Finzer.

Furthermore, OpenSea has established a special moderation team to handle review and moderation. For copyright concerns and other fraud vectors going forward, it will use "critical auto-detection" technologies. According to Finzer, removing these types of items from the platform will improve its overall performance. It will also prevent unsolicited advertisements and fraudulent items that may be found on open blockchains from being seen on OpenSea.

Like receiving an unwanted email, it's possible to receive NFT transfers from people you don’t know.Recently, we've seen scammers use these transfers to entice people to click links to malicious 3rd party sites.Our latest Trust & Safety release helps prevent this new scam. https://t.co/qPHIif2WVT

— Devin Finzer (dfinzer.eth) (@dfinzer) June 13, 2022

On Teusday, the OpenSea CEO tweeted that it's possible to get NFT transfers from individuals you don't know, just as with receiving an unwanted email, adding that:

"Recently, we've seen scammers use these transfers to entice people to click links to malicious 3rd party sites. Our latest Trust & Safety release helps prevent this new scam."

The latest OpenSea safety measures arrive as demand for NFTs is cooling down, and the cryptocurrency market is in a downward spiral. The flourishing economy is no longer being overlooked by U.S. law enforcement, as evidenced by the arrest of Nathaniel Chastain, a former product manager at OpenSea who was charged with wire fraud and money-laundering offenses.

In 2021, when the NFT boom got underway, business at OpenSea increased dramatically. However, frequent hacks and fraud have left many investors dissatisfied with the platform's efforts to compensate victims and combat theft.