Some say that cryptocurrency is all a scam, others vehemently defend it. What's certain is that there are loads of scams surrounding the crypto market, and Evil Ape is yet another in that long, drawn out line of easy opportunity.
Evil Ape NFT scam pockets $2.7 million
Anonymous developer Evil Ape is now infamous in the crypto community. The developer announced an NFT-powered fighting game that would have unique characters for each NFT. (Surely a great idea for a fighting game.)
Reported by Vice, the mysterious developer sold individual characters for thousands of dollars each. Each character was represented by a digitally drawn image stored on the Ethereum blockchain. However, those images are all “investors” will get.
The Evil Ape scammer ran off with a total of 798 ether, the crypto equivalent of $2.7 million. The blockchain is the only sign of the project’s existence with the creator deleting their Twitter account and website after the scam was complete.
Additionally, followers of the project discovered that those involved with the project were also being scammed. Cash giveaways weren't paid out and artists weren't compensated. Everything was a scam.
Read More: Neopets NFTs announced to crush your final untainted childhood memories into fine dust
Kickstarter, but worse
The NFT community is rife with scams like this. It’s reminiscent of the early days of crowdfunding community Kickstarter, but worse. You're buying into a promise that your JPEG anyone can use is worth something. With NFTs, you can't even get a refund. Furthermore, it wrecks havoc on the planet.
Evil Apes is just one example of the world of crypto being a hostile dog-eat-dog environment. It's a massive-scale MLM; it's Avon for nerds. It'll never take off, and those involved will just be left with a catalogue of crap makeup, I mean, JPEGs.
Read More: 12-year-old makes over $400,000 from dumb cryptobros
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