Yuga Labs Accused of Manipulating Buyers With Inflated Prices, Celeb Endorsements in Proposed Lawsuit

The proposed lawsuit claims that Yuga Labs roped in celebrities to promote and ‘inflate’ the prices of BAYC NFTs as well as its ApeCoin.

By Radhika Parashar | Updated: 25 July 2022 11:54 IST

Yuga Labs Accused of Manipulating Buyers With Inflated Prices, Celeb Endorsements in Proposed Lawsuit

Photo Credit: Twitter/ Yuga Labs

Snoop Dogg, Justin Bieber, Madonna among many celebrities who own BAYC NFTs

Highlights

BAYC NFTs have seen prices exceeding $2 million (roughly Rs. 15 crore)
ApeCoin is currently priced $6.31 (roughly Rs. 500)
Yuga Labs has not yet responded to claims by Scott+Scott

Law firm Scott+Scott has proposed a class-action lawsuit, alleging that NFT firm Yuga Labs has manipulated buyers into investing in its digital collectibles. Yuga Labs is the creator of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs and its native token is called the ApeCoin, which is currently priced $6.31 (roughly Rs. 500). The proposed lawsuit claims that Yuga Labs roped in celebrities to promote and ‘inflate' the prices of BAYC NFTs as well as its ApeCoin. Out of the 10,000 BAYC NFTs, the most expensive ones have touched prices exceeding $2,272,620 (roughly Rs. 18 crore).

The trigger point for this lawsuit is backed by an analysis on how the ApeCoin attained its all-time-high of $26.70 (roughly Rs. 2,130) before slipping down by 82.5 percent to trade at $4.66 (roughly Rs. 370) by June-end.

In March this year, the floor price of BAYC NFTs soared by over 25 percent. The development was triggered after BAYC parent Yuga Labs acquired two other popular NFT collections — CryptoPunks and Meebits.

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By June-end however, the floor price, or the lowest price of BAYC NFTs, dropped from ETH 151.5 to ETH 92.9, the law firm has pointed out.

“Yuga Labs investors were inappropriately induced to buy financial products created by Yuga Labs namely the ApeCoin and the Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible tokens (BAYC NFTs). The leadership used celebrity promoters and endorsements to inflate the price of the company's NFTs and token,” said a blog post published by Scott+Scott.

The BAYC NFT series has a total of 10,000 variations of cartoonised, bored-looking apes. Snoop Dogg, Justin Bieber, Madonna, and Jimmy Fallon among several other celebrities possess expensive BAYC NFTs.

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In its blog, the law firm has alleged that the NFT firm created the ApeCoin to “further fleece” unsuspecting investors after having sold off millions of dollars' worth of “fraudulently promoted NFTs”.

“Once it was revealed that the touted growth was entirely dependent on continued promotion (as opposed to actual utility or underlying technology) retail investors were left with tokens that had lost over 87 percent from the inflated price high on April 28, 2022,” the blog post noted.

The law firm has now opened channels for individual BAYC and ApeCoin investors to join this class action lawsuit against Yuga Labs. BAYC and ApeCoin holders who feel that they have suffered losses on BAYC NFTs and ApeCoin between April and June of this year can join in Scott+Scott in its class action lawsuit against Yuga Labs.

Meanwhile, the proposed lawsuit is meeting with satire and resistance on Twitter.

So there's a class action lawsuit against @yugalabs as investors were "inappropriately induced to buy financial products created by Yuga Labs".

Extremely ridiculous:joy: Take responsibility for your own actions people. https://t.co/WeuVVLNGv6 pic.twitter.com/7c9Jywvv9V
— Kevin Wu :mechanical_arm::robot_face::mechanical_arm: (@kevwuzy) July 24, 2022

Yuga investors realizing that in order to participate in the class action lawsuit you have to acknowledge their fraudulent practices pic.twitter.com/UiK1diwTA3
— PAULY:soon: (@Pauly0x) July 24, 2022

If you actually took part in this class action lawsuit against Yuga because you bought the top or don't know how to hold, or take any form of responsibility for your investments, please show yourself. I need to know who to never associate with the rest of my web3 life. https://t.co/SHYTaNyTX7
— knicksfan930 | 516.eth (@JBeegel) July 24, 2022

As of now, Yuga Labs has not yet issued a public statement on this proposed lawsuit hovering over its brand.

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, Yuga Labs, NFT, Bored Apes Yacht Club, BAYC, ApeCoin

Radhika Parashar

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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