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Investors Spent Millions on ‘Evolved Apes’ NFTs. Then They Got Scammed
- TheDudeMan 5y agoCan you call NFT buyers "investors"? I would call them something else...
- AIorNot 5y agoAh, They great legacy of crypto and blockchain
- exterminatus 5y agoPeople scammed themselves when they thought it was a good idea to buy NFTs.
- realce 5y agoPossible maxim: Financial innovation typically is seeded in criminal activity.
- elil17 5y agoCurious, when has this been true historically? I can’t think of one financial innovation outside of crypto that started as criminal activity. I definitely don’t think most of the more recent ones (PayPal, credit cards, online banking) were.
- skohan 5y agoAgreed. Crypto has just been a fertile ground to replay every innovation in financial crime and fraud which had already been regulated against in other markets.
- vmception 5y agoDisagreed because the actions didn't start as regulated against in the other markets. We are operating on the same information and made a different conclusion. The other markets also started with the bad activities and then called them criminal. Kind of a stretch to say “well it wasnt criminal at first so crypto is the outlier here”
- skohan 5y agoIt just seems stupid not to learn from one's mistakes. We already know these kinds of activities are problematic and amount to theft, so it's comical to see people saying this is our financial "future" when it's hundreds of years behind in terms of the regulations and protections which make traditional financial and monetary systems safe and stable, all well offering dubious actual benefits and being incredibly inefficient from an energy perspective.
- vmception 5y agoHa, I would say all, the actions just weren’t initially considered criminal until they were. There is almost nothing that the Dutch East India company did that we would call “above board” now. Criminal negligence, collusion, foreign corrupt practices, domestic corruption, pillaging, slave trading, shady accounting, and god forbid if those securities were registered or not. More relatable, the book Flash Boys goes into the history of Wall Street regulations going back to the 1850s and finds something similar, every regulation is some kind of reaction to a novel way that some form of brokers are trading ahead of their clients. “Finance” only very recently was a respectable or attractive entity, sure everyone knew there was a money shuffling place that resulted in potentially having a lot of money for yourself, but there was nothing inclusive about it nor did this really bother anyone because this wasnt the aspiration either (and because nothing was inclusive, many other issues to be honest). Just a small club with no national/federal oversight. Rife with scams. 1920s wall street isnt so different than the entire crypto space today. A stoic onlooker would say “why bother its all a scam” an insider would say “there are a lot of scams but there are ways to distinguish” and a person hungry for opportunity would look at them both, chuckle at how they talk past each other, and buy a random asset on margin because distinguishing didn't really matter. Their opportunities either improved or it didnt.
- skohan 5y agoYou haven't given examples of financial innovation which started out as crimes. You've given examples of crimes which have since been regulated against and better controlled.
- vmception 5y agoOk, by that standard, no, the joint share company concept didn't start as a crime and neither did distributed ledger blockchain concept The entire supposition is unsound. Crypto didnt start as a criminal activity.
- skohan 5y agoWasn't that your entire supposition, that both crypto and traditional finance started as criminal activity?
- short12 5y agoThey got scammed when they bought the stupid nfts in the first place
- vmception 5y ago@dang at what point do we enforce the unsubstantive comments prohibition on crypto/nft threads? even if you are of a prevalent[1] negative HN opinion about crypto/blockchain/nfts you can still be vigilant about what comments objectively add to the discussion or not. [1] fixed wording to mitigate an easy derail
- skohan 5y agoIt's probably the majority opinion on HN that these NFT's are a total farce. A dismissive take is more substantive than the crypto "advocates" who pile into these threads and submit paragraphs of nonsense.
- cwkoss 5y ago> majority negative HN opinion about crypto/blockchain/nfts I find it amusing how I see both proponents and detractors of crypto posts on HN complain that they are in the minority. Feels like a pretty even split to me.
- trophycase 5y agoNah this site is hilariously anti-blockchain. With less intellectual curiosity than my boomer parents. It's embarrassing really, for a "tech" site. NGMI. Keep being slaves to big tech I guess.
- skohan 5y agoI find it quite normal that one of the more tech-literate forums on the internet would see through the obvious bs coming out of blockchain advocacy. HN readers are probably more likely than the average person to understand how blockchain actually works, and why so many of the claims made about it are patent nonsense.
- dreyfan 5y agoThey weren’t scammed anymore than roulette “scams” many of its players. NFTs are pure speculation and gambling.
- nuerow 5y ago> NFTs are pure speculation and gambling. I'd add money laundering to the list.
- bko 5y ago> 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 That's the one thing I don't understand about NFTs. Proponents claim they're supporting real artists, but so many of them are run by totally anonymous teams. The other big issue is that OpenSea has (what I assume) are non-binding bids so you can bid up your NFT. And obviously you can buy from an alt account or have an insider buy it. I would like to see an NFT market that burns 50% of the amount with binding bids and escrow. No one like burning tokens, but that'll make it a lot more expensive to have an insider inflate your NFT The rug pull here is also weird, because the project was a success. Sure they may have overpromised or been in over their head, but the organization and brand has at least some value. They could have sold it and not just abandoned it since they didn't owe anyone anything
- swalsh 5y agoI'm really bullish on NFT's (for example I think I'd feel a lot more confident if my ebook or streaming library was a series of NFT's as opposed to some entries in a database owned by Amazon. I'd actually own it and could choose to resell it if I wanted too) but we're really early right now, and I think there's some learning that needs to happen. Once we reach the trough of despair, we're be able to build this stuff out with the high profile failures.
- rebuilder 5y agoWhy would you prefer the ebooks to be connected to NFTs? You’d still be relying on someone to store them for you, since the tokens don’t contain the actual work they reference. What am I missing?
- bko 5y ago> for example I think I'd feel a lot more confident if my ebook or streaming library was a series of NFT's How would an NFT be better than a non-DRM local version? Either the text would be available on the blockchain, in which case anyone would be able to read it, or the token would allow you to go to some central site where you put it in to access your book. In which case the site could just disappear or lock you out anyway. Unless there is some distributed platform where anyone can host copyrighted material and let you access with a token, but I doubt any publisher would allow anyone to hold and administer access to their intellectual property
- Lev1a 5y ago> Investors Spent Millions on `Evolved Apes´ NFTs. ~~Then~~ They Got Scammed. What the title should be because let's not pretend NFTs are anything other than a thinly disguised vehicle for scams, speculation and ultimately simply wastes of energy. In any case I can't honestly believe that everyone waxing lyrical about NFTs' supposed upsides or "value" is not someone in it for a quick profit at the expense of gullible people and/or others with the same motives but not as good at scamming. Seeing NFT-peddlers bend themselves over backwards in mock sincerity so someone will buy into their scam is just pathetic.
- web2sucks 5y agoThis is like saying most websites are scams. Tokens are to web3 as websites are to web2.
- BobbyJo 5y agoI'd like to hear why you think that comparison makes sense. I don't see any way in which the two represent similar functions or parts. If your argument is based around a token being a sort of domain, then that's like comparing owning real land to owning land in an MMORPG. If your argument is around functionality that's like comparing a car to a parking spot.
- skohan 5y agoWhat does that even mean?
- trophycase 5y agoIt means that tokens are one of the fundamental building blocks and foundational usecases of blockchain/web3. Are you even trying to understand, or just asking in bad faith? Because I know this website hates crypto which is just embarrassing.
- skohan 5y agoDo you actually understand the value of any of that or are you just parroting something you read? What is web 3 and what concrete benefits will it provide?
- ArtWomb 5y agoYou'd think scams would devalue ALL NFTs. But, counter-intuitively perhaps, it makes the "authentic" ones with provenance seem more valuable ;) ps ape fest 2021 halloween yacht party nyc! valid BAYC || MAYC required for entry https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1453911020137816068 https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1453911020137816068
- egypturnash 5y agoAnyone wanna lay bets on whether Mike_Cryptobull and/or John_Cryptobull (the "Fight Back Apes" co-founders) are actually just Evil Ape (original Evolved Apes organizer who vanished) under a new alias?
- miohtama 5y agoThis is why you should not ”invest” in projects with anonymous leadership.
- saulpw 5y agoLike Bitcoin, and I completely agree (not being sarcastic).
- vmception 5y agoI would make those bets because there isnt enough money in stringing the community a long, compared to the $2.7mm already collected
- vmception 5y agoIf anyone wants an discussion aside from “nft itself are scam why bother drawing a distinction” or “crypto is a scam yada yada” here is one: NFT communities often try to use the narrative to independently build off the collection without the help of the issuers. This is possible but it usually fails because nobody has the same level of budget as the issuer would have. And there are too many other opportunities and vibrant communities to be a part of that don't require repair. Outside of NFT land, the cryptopup meme currency $FLOKI has gone through two rug pulls and still got community support to attract a $1.7bn marketcap (by circulating supply). And FLOKI still has a transfer tax that pays the original rugging dev on every trade! I think only a handful of people know this, despite the community rallying to steward the token and order ongoing ad campaigns including on the sides of metro buses I’ve seen in major US cities.
- gz5 5y agowould smart contracts at least prevented artists from (apparently) not getting paid? disclosure: newbie to this ecosystem.
- xyzal 5y agoIs there any way of laundering/anonymizing cryptocurrencies as of yet, or are the thieves stuck with their unsellable ether?
- 3r8Oltr0ziouVDM 5y agoTornado.cash
- ALittleLight 5y agoYou buy your character for this fighting game before the game is even released? They've done an incredible job of producing, and selling, DLC for a game that does not exist.
- cableshaft 5y agoThe money raised helps fund the development of the game. The same type of thing happens on Kickstarter too, for both video and board games, and sometimes people get scammed out of what they backed on Kickstarter also (in fact before you back, Kickstarter requires you to check a box saying "Rewards aren't guaranteed. Backing means supporting a creative project, regardless of the outcome. I understand that rewards or reimbursements aren’t guaranteed by either Kickstarter or the creator."). But Kickstarter has also led to some really great games as well (like Shovel Knight and Undertale, and like 50% of all board games nowadays, or at least it seems like it). The idea behind the game or utility NFT projects (at least the legit projects, which I couldn't guess how many are legit, I've only recently -- within the past month -- stopped ignoring the NFT space and started learning about it) is basically Kickstarter but you see what you're going to use to interact with (and trade for other ones) before the game is made, as opposed to just Kickstarter taking your money and waiting for posted updates every few months until the game is out. You also get something unique to interact with the game, as opposed to having the exact same experience as everyone else. Those behind the NFT project wouldn't be able to make the game without the funds raised from the NFT sale (or unless they went on Kickstarter, but NFT is where more money is right now). People here raise venture capital to work on software projects all the time before the product is made, this shouldn't seem like such a foreign concept. Kickstarter had a lot of garbage and failed game projects and people getting scammed in the beginning too, before backers started getting wiser and knew what red flags to look out for, and game developers/publishers got more of a feel for the space and what's needed in order to insure a successful project. Now it's a pretty well-oiled machine (mostly...the shipping crisis has thrown a serious monkey wrench into board game Kickstarters this past year) and hundreds of millions of dollars are raised on Kickstarter for games every single year. https://www.intoindiegames.com/the-most-successful-kickstarter-funded-indie-games/ https://www.intoindiegames.com/the-most-successful-kickstart...
- Shadonototra 5y agoGamblers Spent Millions on ‘Evolved Apes’ NFTs. Then They Got Scammed
- bob229 5y agoNFTs are for morons
- lwansbrough 5y ago”Then”? I don’t know where these crypto people came from but I have a hard time believing “web3” (aka crypto bullshit) proponents are legitimate technologists. Who in their right mind looks at NFTs and crypto currency and says, “Oh yeah, that’s way better than the current monetary system.” It’s all a bad joke.
- cwkoss 5y agoIs there evidence they actually got scammed? Maybe Evil Ape sold all the eth and intends to use it to pay people, and doesn't feel the need to communicate plans. Are claims of future plans legally binding for Evil Ape, since people bought NFTs based on those future plans? Would it be fraud if a 100k game was developed and released in 5 years? Has a crime been committed yet?
- jarofgreen 5y ago> and the artist hadn’t been paid either. > he and others would build a new project called Fight Back Apes out of the ashes of Evolved Apes. Evolved Apes holders would be automatically approved for a Fight Back Apes token linked with the art from the old project. Is the artist going to get paid this time?
- kderbyma 5y agoif you got Scammed. you deserve it.
- vincnetas 5y agoI think this is called “victim blaming”
- xanaxagoras 5y ago> Unlike with cryptocurrencies, NFT rug pulls leave behind JPEGs and a narrative surrounding them. I'm sorry, is this supposed to be seen as a silver lining, that there are JPG images of monkeys in the wake of this debacle? Why is so much of culture this ridiculous and frivolous now? Who cares about the NFTs or what happened to the "investors" (lol).