A developer only known as ‘Evil Ape’ has disappeared with $2.7 million in funds raised by the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The NFTs were paid by investors for primate characters in a proposed fighting game.
NFT | Rosenblatt’s Financial Crime Team
Evolved Apes was launched as a project in late September offering a ‘collection of 10,000 unique NFTs trapped inside a lawless land’. The project promised buyers the use of the purchased NFTs in the fighting game, with winners awarded Ethereum as prizes.
A NFT is a non-exchangeable distinct digital token with a unique ID. NFTs use the same blockchain technology behind cryptocurrency to record the ownership of digital items including images, videos, collectibles and in some instances virtual worlds. NFTs are most commonly sold in timed drops of online sales on blockchain-backed marketplaces.
A public sale of the Evolved Apes NFTs occurred on 24 September 2021 which quickly raised several million dollars. The most expensive NFT, EvolvedApe #7212 sold for $20,6000. On 1 October 2021, a week after the project was launched, investors in the NFTs realised the developer had disappeared with the funds after deactivating the Evolved Apes’ official Twitter account and website.
Members of the Evolved Apes community began a fact-finding exercise after red flags were raised about the integrity of the project and created a ‘Fight Back Apes” organisation in an attempt to hold the developer accountable. One of the members, Mr Cryptobull, stated “What has happened is that Evil Ape has washed his hands of the project taking away the wallet with all the [Ethereum] from minting that was to be used for everything, from paying the artist, paying out cash giveaways, paying for marketing, paying for rarity tools, developing the game and everything else in between”.
Despite this, it is likely that we will continue to see a significant rise in the number of NFT sales as this area is one that is continuing to grow since it was brought to the forefront in February and March of this year. A single NFT artwork by the digital artist Beeple sold for $69.3 million at Christie’s, being the first sale by a major auction house of artwork with no physical form.
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(Source: ‘Evolved Apes’ NFT creator allegedly absconds with $2.7 million (cointelegraph.com))
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