The viability of cryptocurrency hinges on the idea of decentralization and transparency — every transaction involving Bitcoin or Ethereum is publicly viewable and stamped on the blockchain. But what happens when there is some sort of technical issue, or worse, a concerted attack targeting the massive amounts of data needed to keep these systems operational? In the case of MetaMask, a cryptocurrency wallet and blockchain gateway, bots are trying to redirect users to external sites, presumably to scam the unsuspecting.
As reported by Vice, OpenSea suffered a “database outage” on Thursday, which had a trickle-down effect on all of the services that rely on the platform’s APIs, including MetaMask. Users were having difficulty accessing their NFTs, prompting some to take to Twitter:
