It appears that a founder of a non-fungible token (NFT) project has a so-called back pull or exit scam has committed; i.e. the developer has suddenly disappeared with the funds from the project.
It involves a certain “Evil Ape,” the developer of “Evolved Apes.” Evolved Apes should become a “fighting game” with as many as “thousand” characters that can be traded as NFTs.
A lot of hype has been generated about the project on social media in recent weeks. The NFT collection was therefore sold out within 10 minutes, even though there were already red flags. The project even promised that one could earn ethereum (ETH) from the fighting game.
However, this Evil Ape suddenly disappeared a week after the launch of the NFT collection. The Evolved Apes website has been taken down and all Twitter accounts have been closed. Via Etherscan it can be found that Evil Ape made off with no less than 798 ETH, worth about $2.8 million.
As a result, the value of the NFTs has also collapsed and that is of course very expensive for the early investors. In addition, it appears that not everyone has received their NFT yet.
Also, the original artists of the Evolved Apes NFTs would not have been paid, while Evil Ape itself apparently still earns 4% in “copyrights” through the resale of NFTs on, for example, the OpenSea marketplace.
It sounds very unlikely that the fighting game will ever come out. Still, the community is still trying to salvage the project under the name “Fight Back Apes.” The community is now using a multisignature (multisig) wallet in hopes of avoiding such a situation in the future. But can they actually release a fighting game?
Unfortunately, we regularly see new technologies and markets accompanied by scammers who abuse the fear of missing out (FOMO). Don’t fall for it and always do good research first. The trailer itself could have served as a warning: