Evolved Apes NFTs Disappear from Web, ‘Evil Ape’ Developer Vanishes with Nearly $3 Million in Ether

The game-type NFT project went live for sale on September 24 on OpenSea marketplace.

Evolved Apes NFTs Disappear from Web, ‘Evil Ape’ Developer Vanishes with Nearly $3 Million in Ether

NFTs are digital assets that can be bought using cryptocurrencies

Highlights
  • Evolved Apes is a collection of 10,000 NFTs
  • It is a survival-of-the-fittest game type NFT
  • The project is still verified on OpenSea
Advertisement

A collection of 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) called the Evolved Apes has reportedly been completely wiped off from the internet. The anonymous developer of Evolved Apes, known as Evil Ape, has also vanished, leaving investors high and dry. Traces left on the blockchain however, revealed that a total of 798 Ether had been channelled out of the project fund in several transfers. On Thursday, September 7, the value of 798 Ether was $2.8 million (roughly Rs. 21 crores).

The Evolved Apes project was released as a game-type NFT – that allowed buyers to purchase any of the 10,000 available ape NFT tokens and fight to survive in a lawless land. Currently hyped up in terms of craze, NFTs are digital assets representing objects like art, music, in-game items, and videos among other unique items that can be bought using cryptocurrencies.

“What has happened is that Evil Ape has washed his hands of the project taking away the wallet with all the Ether 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,” a report by Vice.com quoted an investor as saying.

After the sale went live on September 24, investors in the Evolved Apes project had started to notice some anomalies. The community members, for starters, discovered that people who had participated in a marketing-focussed social media competition hadn't received their NFT prizes.

Later, it surfaced that the artist involved in creating these ape NFTs had also not been paid.

In order to piece the situation together, the investors in this Evolved Apes project got on a conference call only to realise later, that they had been duped.

An investor who goes by the pseudo name of Mike_Cryptobull was appointed by others, as the head of this mission to find this NFT scammer. As per the Vice report, Mike_Cryptobull had invested three Ethers, amounting over $10,000 (roughly Rs. 7.4 lakhs).

“We will become the ‘Fight Back Apes', fighting as a community against our nemesis Evil Ape,” Mike_Cryptobull told Vice, revealing his plans of tracking down this cyber fraudster.

Meanwhile, the Evolved Apes project is still verified on the OpenSea platform. Since Friday, October 1, over 574 ape NFTs have been sold from the project, amounting to a substantial volume of 13.9 Ethers i.e $48,887 (roughly Rs. 36.5 lakhs).

In recent days, these game-type NFTs have been gaining popularity in the crypto space.

Earlier this week, American venture capital (VC) firm Andreessen Horowitz led a Series B funding round for a Vietnamese gaming studio Sky Mavis – that created the popular NFT game called “Axie Infinity”.

NFT sales volume surged to $10.7 billion (roughly Rs. 79,820 crores) in the third quarter of 2021, up more than eightfold from the previous quarter, according to data from market tracker DappRadar, as the frenzy for crypto assets reached new highs.


Interested in cryptocurrency? We discuss all things crypto with WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty and WeekendInvesting founder Alok Jain on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.
Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Radhika Parashar
Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More
Twitter Testing Prompts That Warns Users if a Conversation Could Get 'Heated or Intense'
Facebook Gadgets360 Twitter Share Tweet Snapchat LinkedIn Reddit Comment google-newsGoogle News

Advertisement

Follow Us
© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
Trending Products »
Latest Tech News »