Investors Spent Millions on 'Evolved Apes' NFTs. Then They Got Scammed (vice.com) 52
Evolved Apes is described on NFT marketplace OpenSea as "a collection of 10,000 unique NFTs trapped inside a lawless land." They are "fighting for survival, only the strongest ape will prevail," it says, referring to the project's much-hyped fighting game, which has not materialized. From a report: A week after the project launch, the anonymous developer known as Evil Ape who promised that game, vanished along with the project's official Twitter account and website. But they left traces behind on the blockchain that shows they siphoned 798 ether ($2.7 million) out of the project's funds in multiple transfers. The funds, derived from the initial public sale of NFTs and commissions on the secondary market, were meant for project-related expenses like marketing.
Evolved Ape investors noticed several red flags leading up to Evil Ape's rug pull. After the public sale on September 24, the announcements seemed suspiciously unprofessional and several of the leaders were not around anymore, one investor who requested anonymity due to the ongoing fallout from the scam told Motherboard. But they chalked it down to lack of experience at the time. "I don't think this giant storm was ever what was expected," the investor said. According to Mike_Cryptobull, who did not share their real name due to their standing in the community, the Evolved Apes community discovered that the social-media competition winners (a marketing activity to create buzz) hadn't received their NFT prizes from the project, and the artist hadn't been paid either.
Evolved Ape investors noticed several red flags leading up to Evil Ape's rug pull. After the public sale on September 24, the announcements seemed suspiciously unprofessional and several of the leaders were not around anymore, one investor who requested anonymity due to the ongoing fallout from the scam told Motherboard. But they chalked it down to lack of experience at the time. "I don't think this giant storm was ever what was expected," the investor said. According to Mike_Cryptobull, who did not share their real name due to their standing in the community, the Evolved Apes community discovered that the social-media competition winners (a marketing activity to create buzz) hadn't received their NFT prizes from the project, and the artist hadn't been paid either.
I'll buy that for a dollar (Score:2)
Order is incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
Scamming came first.
Re: Order is incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Anyone involved in crypto currency / NFT is speculating and gambling.
On the plus side (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
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Wrong target audience!
You could make a lot of money by selling her to whale oil makers! ;)
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Why is this shocking? (Score:3)
Random person shows up, sends out quickly generated jpgs for money that is barely/not traceable. I'm sure this happens all the time.
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Does paying for jpgs really happen "all the time?" This seems to be another gen-z "what's a computer?" type of problem.
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[quote]Does paying for jpgs really happen "all the time?"[/quote]
Furries.
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https://kemono.party/ [kemono.party]
All I can say is (Score:4, Insightful)
BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
NFTs are a scam (Score:5, Informative)
n/t
Kickstarter (Score:2)
I'm SHOCKED! SHOCKED! (Score:2)
But, there goes that idea. Now I have to come up with another NFT scam.
The fight for survival is over (Score:2)
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GROG SMASH grog smash grog smash grog... smush... wait, what? mom can grog have lunch money? :,,( *roflcopter*
My Slashdot Fortune (Score:2)
Oddly appropriate for NFT's too...
-JS
Get back to Earth (Score:2)
Oh No! (Score:1)
Anyway...
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So that means that you're an incomplete idiot?
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Probably more like High Boi's "... explained by an idiot" series [youtube.com]. (Hint: He's not an idiot. :)
Reminds me of a company I worked for in '04 (Score:2)
You guessed it, we got the demo working. And it was utter shit. To do the project we had to completely scrap th
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You put a week "unpaid" to get an extra... week's pay?
But unwanted unit tests, yeah, that should always be a firing offense.
Integration tests, sure, I can see refusing not to write integration tests.
The problem with units tests for a website is that you're usually using a framework, and you don't need to test the framework. The integration tests will uncover the bugs. It's makework that the whole team trips over.
If you're writing a framework, then yeah, unit tests.
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You got an exit interview when you were fired?
Spoiler Alert - You are not an investor (Score:2)
Seems to me it worked as advertised (Score:5, Funny)
... demonstrating the evolution of apes from "bite in the face and take banana" to "hit with club and take shiny rock" to "offer shiny imaginary rock and take money."
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While I agree with you, I'd like to point out that money is imaginary too, so your final statement should really be translated into "offer shiny imaginary rock and take imaginary indicator of wealth", which doesn't make the situation seem as bad. It's just that one of those two forms of imaginary goods has more buy-in from society than the other.
Police! Police! (Score:2)
Accuser: "Police! Police! They promised me a specific nothing, and I paid them for it... then they gave me a different nothing! Arrest them at once!"
Police: "Yeah, we'll get right on that."
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There was a hilarious Scrooge McDuck story about this!
They went to the end of the universe, to literally scoop out a bit of "nothing".
So Scrooge would officially have "nothing" (in a safe), and would have to pay no taxes.
He sold some "nothing" to every other rich guy, for loads of sweet sweet profit.
But the Beagle Boys opened his safe, and stole the "nothing".
He called the police. But they couldn't do anything, because "they stole nothing"! XD
Whoever wrote it, had a beautiful mind. :)
Wait, wait, wait (Score:3)
You mean, the NFT was not the scam part?
They scammed on top of the whole NFT thing?
Is this what is meant by "overkill"?
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In crypto they call it a 'rug pull'.
what a sucker (Score:2)
> and the artist hadn't been paid either
50% now, 50% on delivery.
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Classic Content Mafia move.
Remember the writers' strikes of the mid-late 2000s? They were about exactly the same thing. Not paying the actual writers for the online distribution.
Who could possibly have predicted... (Score:2)
Funny you should mention this (Score:2)
https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
"LOS ANGELES, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Camera operators, make-up artists and other behind-the-scenes workers on Hollywood films and television shows voted resoundingly to authorize a strike if they cannot reach agreement with producers on a new contract, their union said on Monday.
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) which represents some 60,000 off-screen workers, said that 90% of its members cast ballots and more than 98% of the votes returned were in
Re: Funny you should mention this (Score:2)
Fuck this was a reply to
"Classic Content Mafia move.
Remember the writers' strikes of the mid-late 2000s? They were about exactly the same thing. Not paying the actual writers for the online distribution."
Come on, this is hilarious! (Score:2)
Selling "evolved apes" to clearly non-evolved apes! XD
I'd like to see how they came up with it. If I could see through all the weed smoke. :)
The saddest song on the tiniest violin (Score:2)
If VCs haven't learned during the past 20 years scince the dot-bomb era, I don't feel sorry for them one damn bit.
A poor hard working guy gets scammed out of 300$ and nobody cares that he can't pay the rent for the month. So why should anybody care about rich playboys with more dollars than sense?
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Don't buy exclusive digital nothings with your rent money?
Re: The saddest song on the tiniest violin (Score:2)
Someone who is out $300 and can't pay rent is bilked in other ways than investing in a startup company.
Even the wisest people can fall for a scam or get bilked, sometimes by their own family members, so victim blaming need not be done here.
Re: The saddest song on the tiniest violin (Score:2)
"so victim blaming need not be done here."
Well the elderly and people with scummy family members who are not aware that they are scummy. However, I expect people that are in command of millions of dollars and are willing to be VCs to know better.
"Then they got scammed" (Score:4)
"Investors" and "NFT" (Score:3)
When I hear these two words in one sentence, a proverb inevitably comes to my mind.
"A fool and his money are soon parted".
Investors Spent Millions on 'Evolved Apes' NFTs. T (Score:1)