The developer of the NFT project 'Evolved Apes' escaped with over 300 million yen of crypto assets, and investors who were deceived launched a new project
Investors Spent Millions on'Evolved Apes' NFTs. Then They Got Scammed.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dyem/investors-spent-millions-on-evolved-apes-nfts-then-they-got-scammed
'Evolved Apes' NFT creator Evil Ape disappears with $ 2.7M | PC Gamer
https://www.pcgamer.com/evolved-apes-nft-creator-evil-ape-disappears-with-dollar27m/
Evolved Apes is an NFT project released on September 24, 2021 at OpenSea , a major NFT market, selling monkey NFT art to supporters. Looking at the official page below, 'Evolved Apes Universe is a unique NFT collection of 10,000 trapped in a lawless zone. Fight to survive and only the strongest apes will win,' explains the concept of the project. I am.
Evolved Apes Inc --Collection | OpenSea
https://opensea.io/collection/evolved-apes-inc
Evolved Apes has announced that it will release a fighting game using monkey characters sold as NFT art, and said that the proceeds from NFT art will be used for the development and marketing of fighting games. However, a week after the project was announced, the developer of Evolved Apes, who calls himself 'Evil Ape, ' deleted his official Twitter account and website and disappeared from the Internet.
At the time of Evil Ape's disappearance, the project funds raised by buying and selling NFT art and royalties exceeded 798 Ethereum (about $ 2.7 million), but it was said that Ethereum was taken out by multiple remittances. matter.
In fact, investors were aware of some 'danger signals' even before Evil Ape disappeared. For example, the content of the announcement about Evolved Apes lacked expertise, the winner of the 'Contest to promote Evolved Apes on SNS' was not paid, and some artists worked on NFT art. It has been pointed out that they have not received any compensation. However, investors also lacked experience with NFTs, so it seems that they could not have predicted that Evil Ape would run away with the funds.
After the disappearance of Evil Ape, investors talked on the Discord server and formed a team to summarize the facts about Evolved Apes, led by a person with the handle 'Mike_Cryptobull' who invested more than $ 10,000 in Evolved Apes. I launched it. 'Evil Ape has taken out all the Ethereum that would have been paid for all purposes, including rewards for artists, cash gifts, marketing, and game development, and withdrew from the project,' the team's report said. I am.
Investors have been scammed in this case, but Mike_Cryptobull's report does not mention the pursuit of criminal accusations. A person named 'Jdmjem' who was the victim of Evolved Apes pointed out that while Evil Ape's actions are definitely fraudulent, they may not be technically identified as fraudulent. 'The problem is that everyone got NFT art instead of paying. After all, game development and other promises are outside the scope of the purchase itself.' 'People report damage to police. I'm trying to submit, but the problem is that this is an unknown field, unethical but not technically illegal. We all got what we paid for. ' It states.
Although the developer, Evil Ape, has disappeared, members of the community still have the NFT art they purchased at Ethereum and will continue to operate the community. Members will launch a new project called 'Fight Back Apes ' and link the Fight Back Apes token to the existing Evolved Apes NFT art. 'We will be Fight Back Apes fighting Evil Ape as a community,' said Mike_Cryptobull.
Transactions of Evolved Apes are still ongoing at the time of writing the article, and the total transaction amount since the disappearance of Evil Ape is about 16.7 Ethereum (about 6.6 million yen). It is said that 4% of the total transaction amount is still paid to Evil Ape, and Fight Back Apes aims to bring royalties back to the community by working with the platform OpenSea. In addition, Fight Back Apes seems to be unable to move funds without the signatures of multiple people so that someone can not escape with funds like Evil Ape.
Josh_CryptoBull, a member of Fight Back Apes, admitted that Evolved Apes had multiple warning signs, but said, '99% of us were blinded by the promise of NFT art and the potential benefits we expected. That's it. ' The lesson this time is, 'Believe in your intuition that you feel something is wrong.' 'If you make a mistake, how it will be treated will tell you a lot. '. In addition, Mike_Cryptobull also pointed out that 'investigate the investment target by yourself' and 'do not invest more than the amount you can lose' as a rule common to crypto assets and NFTs.
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