Crypto freaks are like religious cultists who refuse to believe they are in a cult: "Even though the money is gone, the Evolved Apes community plans to carry on."
Evolved Apes is described on NFT marketplace OpenSea as "a collection of 10,000 unique NFTs trapped inside a lawless land." They are "fighting for survival, only the strongest ape will prevail," it says, referring to the project's much-hyped fighting game, which has not materialized.
A week after the project launch, the anonymous developer known as Evil Ape who promised that game vanished along with the project's official Twitter account and website. But they left traces behind on the blockchain that shows they siphoned 798 ether ($2.7 million) out of the project's funds in multiple transfers. The funds, derived from the initial public sale of NFTs and commissions on the secondary market, were meant for project-related expenses like marketing.
[...]
Even though the money is gone, the Evolved Apes community plans to carry on. Unlike with cryptocurrencies, NFT rug pulls leave behind JPEGs and a narrative surrounding them. Mike_Cryptobull explained in the report that he and others would build a new project called Fight Back Apes out of the ashes of Evolved Apes. Evolved Apes holders would be automatically approved for a Fight Back Apes token linked with the art from the old project.
[...]
None of this has put a serious damper on the Evolved Apes trade on OpenSea, where the project is still verified. There have been over 574 NFT sales with a total volume of 13.9 ether ($47,230) since Friday, when the rug-pull became public.
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Two golden rules of crypto also apply here, said Mike_Cryptobull: do your own research, and don't invest anything more than you can afford to lose.
Mike_Cryptobull explained in the report that he and others would build a new project called Fight Back Apes out of the ashes of Evolved Apes. Evolved Apes holders would be automatically approved for a Fight Back Apes token linked with the art from the old project.
lmfao these people are incapable of learning from the past.
I thought the whole fucking point was that one token is irrevocably tied to one thing. Literally what is the point of any of this? Why do ostensibly intelligent beings pay money for this?
is this the thing where the blockchain doesnt even store the jpeg itself, it stores a link to the jpeg, so if the site that hosts the original goes down or changes the linked file to ppb youre shit out of luck and you dont even have your shitty overpriced jpeg anymore? just so many layers of just astonishing absurdity
I want in. We could steal— I mean, artistically expand into the NFT realm this band's logo and make it our own. All great artists steal.
so fucking bad looking
The NFT thing mystifies me. I don't approve of rich people buying art just so they can show off that they bought it. But at least some of time they actually like it. And the art is physical objects that they can have around and enjoy as art.
But the NFT cultists perplex me. They can't show off the "art" that they own. They're trying to monetize shitty JPGs. And on top of that - they don't care at all that their fetish items aren't even remotely artistic. They're simultaneously saying that they don't care if their investment crashes and they don't care about the art. Yet they buy and trade that shit anyway. Why?
It seems to me to be a bizarre digital form of a cargo cult.
Branco
I was going to make fun of him for not improving his artistic skills even though he's been a cartoonist for decades. But I just looked at his Twitter account and I have to say I like this one from two days ago. Is he actually getting better?
art has become financial instruments, so now financial instruments must become art
this is balance in hell world
and all these different "brands" of procedurally generated NFTs all have the exact same formula. It is genuinely mystifying.
We will play a tiny violin for any rich guy who won't even care if he loses it all - with an NFT investment of $10k or $100k or even more. What does he care? It's just a game to him.
"Get rich quick" scams have surely existed since shortly after money was invented and lots of small investors buying NFTs are going to get hosed. They view NFTs as different from a scam because it's high tech and it's digital.
If we could talk to those small investors - they'd puff out their chests and say they're going to be proven right. They're going to make money. And we'll be jealous.
The situation reminds me of a quote that's not about grifting but I think it does express the wishful thinking that's in play here...
There is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
— H. L. Mencken
Is this real? Like, if I wanted to scam a couple million out of crypto dorks so I can buy guns for local unions, is that an actual thing that's as easy as procedurally generating 1000 images? Or is this some sort of scamming the scammer scheme like with the Nigerian Prince?
I'm no expert on grifting but I assume that how the website looks is vital because branding is key. In reddit-speak it has to look legit. The website has to look money: sleek, glossy, and sophisticated. Of course - it's purely cosmetic - but I assume the better it looks - the faster the fools will part with their money.
I'm pretty sure you need to pay at least the gas fees involved with minting, so it's kind of a bad scam. Tons of people paid to have their art minted and ended up owning worthless NFTs that nobody will buy. As said above, you need a solid game to entice people and make it worth the investment.
buying an NFT is like buying the barcode and UPC associated with the beanie baby, like owning the number 65217261 which represents a beanie baby. the number means nothing but some people think that it's proof of ownership to the rights to a specific kind of beanie baby, even though in the real world, NFTs are meaningless.
It's like being a sovereign citizen, but just for Beanie Babies. If that sounds like stupid nonsense, that's because it is.
I just hate that cryptocurrency has given itself a veneer of legitimacy such that shit like this is even fucking possible. It just feel insane thinking about it - that I could have just stolen some CPU cycles at an old job in 2009 and never have to work again, that people are spending tens of millions on fucking JPGs, that IBM are selling blockchain implementations to household names…what an utter, tragic waste of so much. At least with tulips there was the hypothetical promise of getting a fucking flower.
I viscerally hate people who are excited by this shit. I’m sick and tired of feeling hypernormalised by utterly everything, and knowing that we’ll probably look back on this as being a time of relative sanity and stability.
we’ll probably look back on this as being a time of relative sanity and stability.
That's the scariest thing to me.
If they didn't shut it down then the SEC would have for selling unregulated securities. The crypto community loves to reinvent all the problems with banking and securities that has led to the regulations we have today.
Oh, I checked into that narrative about prices hardly changing and it seems to be wrong. The prices are crashing.
Lol, the beanie baby analogy was used extensively in the token argument too. Regardless, capital holders are already filing NFTs as securities and they are asking the SEC for further guidance. You really think a bunch of scam "art" is going to able to keep its head above water once the SEC susses out their rules?
THIS ISN"T FUNNY. IT SN T FUNNY> I INVESTED ALL OF MY KIDS" COLLEGE FUNDS IN MONKEY JPGS AND NOW THEY"RE FUCKED. I HAVE TO ABANDON MY FAMILY BECAUSE OF THIS AND YOU"RER LAUGHING.
eveytime i share something about NFTs and crypto being a scam the same person responds to me defending them because of "art." guess who has money in NFTs and needs them to be valid? that guy.
Selling digital art is like selling air and people who put a value on a unique chain of code are schmucks who wasted their money.
I made a "Just mint the fucking coin" post yesterday...
Biden asked if he can guarantee the US won’t breach the debt limit: “No I can’t. That’s up to Mitch McConnell.”
“I can’t believe that will be the end result… but can I guarantee it? If I could I would.”
I deleted the post after about 3 minutes. I realized I wasn't in the right mood. I couldn't laugh about it - I was actually angry enough to scream. It's up to Mitch McConnell, Biden? The dems control everything - you useless fucker. Just. Mint. The. Fucking. Coin.
Today, I'm trying to be in a "If we default - we default" mood. Maybe if we default - there's a silver lining. I stop giving a fuck about climate change and worrying about it. The dems might even drastically cut funding for climate in the bigger bill.
The world's solution is surely going to end up being climate engineering. We're going to use it to actually blot out the sun. If that's not an evil omen - I don't know what is.
This debt ceiling stuff has been going on for decades. Biden knows that Mitch McConnell will cave or it'll cause a collapse of the American system, a win in my book either way.
