The rug has been pulled, torn and thrown in the trash with the latest gaming NFT scam. A Minecraft NFT scam by the name of Blockverse has successfully swindled NFT customers out of over $1.2 million in cryptocurrency.
While not a unique occurrence — a high-profile NFT fighting game has turned out to be a sham — this appears to be the first time a crypto-scam has been tied to such a popular video game. But what happened?
What is Blockverse Minecraft NFT scam?
The Blockverse scam was essentially a private Minecraft server that could only be accessed with NFTs. Paid Minecraft servers are nothing new — the concept of membership servers have been around for almost a decade — but this particular server added cryptoart into the equation.
Access to the Blockverse server required would-be users to purchase one of 10,000 Blockverse NFTs, and they sure did sell! In just 8 minutes, all 10,000 minted assets were sold to the tune of around $1.2 million.
However, after the NFTs sold, customers were quickly swindled. Just a few days after the sale date, the Blockverse server, website and Discord channel were all quickly deleted. Customers quickly took to social media to demand answers.
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Blockverse Apology
After fans demanded information on the nature of Blockverse, people behind the project finally broke the silence on social media. The developers explained that there were a “multitude of issues”, including high “fees”, despite making $1.2 million off the project.
They said:
“We feel that we owe everyone an apology, and more importantly an explanation. Blockverse was supposed to be a great project, as before our launch we invested an enormous amount of time and resources working on it. Everything was fully legitimate: our contract was verified, the game infrastructure was fully set up, and our launch went well, albeit with some small bumps along the road.”
The developers also continued to explain that they aren't done with their Minecraft NFT line. Despite the backlash, the team is still going to continue “development on Phase 2, a future expansion of Blockverse.”
There's no sign on whether or not Blockverse will be refunding customers or even opening up the Minecraft server.
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