In the latest crypto scam, the Evolved Apes NFT collection creator has made away with $2.7 million from investors. The crypto space is young and evolving fast. ‘Young’ and ‘Volatile’ are the two best market conditions for scams to thrive. To this end, the crypto industry has not been short of news. Exchanges have been hacked, and DeFi protocols have been drained of funds. The scams seem to continue without check.
What is the Evolved Apes NFT Project?
Evolved Apes NFT project is a collection of 10000 NFTs Apes that live in a wasteland. The developer of the Ape token claimed that they would allow users to use them in a death-match game where the winners would walk away with Ethereum. This enticed the investors to line up and buy the NFTs. However, they were in for a surprise.
The project launched towards the end of September 2021, and the project was listed and verified on OpenSea. Evolved Apes NFTs sold quickly, gathering millions through the sale. However, a week after the end of the sale, Evil Ape, the pseudonymous creator, vanished with the funds – worth over $2 million. On top of that, the rogue dev deactivated his along with the project’s Twitter account. He also took down the Evolved Apes website.
What Lies Ahead for the Evolved Apes Community?
Mike_Cryptobull, a member of the Evolved Apes community, has taken it upon himself to lead the community. Talking to Vice, he said that he had his own concerns about the project’s integrity. He explains that ‘Evil Ape’ made away with the wallet, which had all the ETH for the development of the project. Since the rug pull incident went public, over 570 Evolved Apes NFTs have been bought on OpenSea, raising about 13 ETH (~$47,000).
In a bid to salvage the community, Cryptobull has created the Fight Back Apes in a bid to hold the rogue creator accountable. To reiterate, Ekin Genc, a Twitter user, says Fight Back Apes NFT is ‘fighting as a community against our nemesis Evil Ape!”
We are Better Together
Since the incident, members of the rugged community have received massive support on Twitter. Political Punks NFT project has extended open arms to the Fight Back Apes. Also, Woof, the founder of the Sneaky Vampire Syndicate NFT projects, has promised the affected community presale spots on their Gen2 NFT sale. These are just some highlighted tweets. There are many more NFT projects that rushed to show their support. For example, 7EndangeredNFTs, MehmetKarakusMK, SolRaccoons, Luxaiart, and digitalperverts have shown their notable support.
The End of a Matter…
Non Fungible Tokens are a fairly new field in the crypto space. Consequently, they can be breeding places for scam artists. There are several other types of NFT related scams, but this one was a first. However, there silver lining in this incident – the support and love between different NFT communities. Indeed, this is what makes blockchain and crypto such a force worth reckoning.