'Evolved Apes' creator pulls an NFT scam worth $2.7 million

Imagine a land ripe with lawlessness and disorder. Struggling here for survival and authority are almost 10,000 unique, distinct apes designed as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) because only the strongest ape, decided via a touted fighting game, will go on to live. Except now, this imagination turned scam turned out to be a reality for thousands of investors in the “Evolved Apes” project. Described on the NFT marketplace Opensea as “a collection of 10,000 unique NFTs trapped inside a lawless land”, the anonymous developer who went by the name of Evil Ape completely disappeared from the face of the internet, leaving behind no website or Twitter handle. 

However, blockchain traces showed that funds worth 798 ether or $ 2.7 million had been siphoned off in multiple transfers, funds that were meant to be channelled towards marketing expenses and which had been generated from the initial sale of NFTs and secondary market commissions. 

“What has happened is that Evil Ape has washed his hands of the project taking away the wallet with all the ETH 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,” noted Mike_Cryptobull (name changed), the anointed leader for investigating this scam within the community, who had spent almost $10,000 on 20 apes. 

Red Flags With initial leaders leaving and unprofessional announcements taking centre stage, a scam was imminent, noticed some investors. But they attributed the same to lack of experience, having no idea what was to come ahead. 

The final pull came when it was discovered that the winners from a related social-media competition had not received their NFT prizes, and neither had the artist been compensated. 

But the project is far from over since it is being revamped as “Fight back apes”. Additionally, since the fallout went public, not much has changed in terms of volume of transactions and sales of the project on Opensea, where 574 NFT sales with a total volume of 13.9 ether ($47,230) have been sold. Since the original NFTs and the narrative remain, Evolved Apes holders would be automatically approved for a Fight Back Apes token linked with the art from the old project, in a bid to counter its nemesis Evil apes.