In the spring of 2022, before some of the most volatile events to hit the crypto world last year, an NFT artist named Micah Johnson set out to hold a new auction of his drawings. Johnson is well known in crypto circles for images featuring his character Aku, a young Black boy who dreams of being an astronaut. Collectors lined up for the new release. On the day of the auction, they spent $34 million on the NFTs. Then tragedy (or, depending on your point of view, comedy) struck. The “smart contract” code that Johnson’s software team wrote to run the crypto auction contained a critical bug. All $34 million worth of Johnson’s sales was locked on the Ethereum blockchain. Johnson couldn’t withdraw the funds; nor could he refund money to people who’d bid on an NFT but lost their auction. The virtual money was frozen, untouchable, “locked on chain" as they say, Johnson might wish he’d hired Ronghui Gu.
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