Many NFT projects lack adequate smart contract testing, says nameless founder

cointelegraph.com:

Jimmy McNelis, the founder of Web3 tech firm nameless, says there are too many NFT projects rushing to market without proper smart contract testing — potentially leading to millions lost.

Speaking with Cointelegraph, McNelis suggested that a lot of NFT projects often rush to market without fully simulating how its smart contracts will work, even skipping extensive audits in some cases.

McNelis said an example of this was observed during the sale of the Akutars NFT collection in February 2021 — featuring 15,000 tokens that went up for sale on Winklevoss-owned NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway.

McNelis said while the NFT drop sold out, a major bug saw $33 million worth of Ether (ETH) generated from the sale locked up in a smart contract that the devs have no access to, explaining:

McNelis emphasized the importance of getting the test phase right, given that smart contract bugs can’t be patched post-launch:

McNelis explained that while projects can use public test nets to conduct trials for networks like Ethereum, many don’t as it could open the door for copycat scam projects. He also says that some don't want to test in public environments of the lack of confidentiality.

“The other thing is there's a lot of brands that may be wanting to explore the Web3 space but aren't ready to announce publicly that they're doing so.”

Related: NFTs ‘biggest on-ramp’ to crypto in Central, Southern Asia and Oceania — report

Nameless was founded by McNelis in mid-2021, and the project has so far received backing from popular entrepreneur and NFT proponent Gary Vaynerchuck among others.

It is gearing up for a new product launch later this month with an NFT software called StealthTest, which provides private testnets for devs to trial smart contracts