Introduction

• Bored Ape Yacht Club
• Mutant Ape Yacht Club
• Just Ape.
• Trippin' Ape Club
• Bored Ape Kennel Club
• 0xApes Trilogy
• ...

These are some of the well-performing NFT collections on Opensea. The NFT marketplaces have become a sort of Planet of the Apes.

The interest in Apes and NFTs in general may have gone down but will be up soon - hopefully. This blog entry summarizes not only current hype in the market but also the recent NFT-related issues such as scams and technical flaws.

Deflation of Hype Bubble

It is obvious that involvement of public figures facilitates an NFT collection to stand out among others and rapidly become popular. On the early days of this year, Paris Hilton appeared on the Tonight Show and said “We’re part of the same community, we’re both Apes.” to the host of the show, Jimmy Fallon, as they owned NFTs from the same collection. Their Twitter profile pictures were even those NFTs they owned.

Quick info: As of January, Twitter allowed its users to replace their "conventional" profile pictures with their NFTs using its own in-house verification system.

This change became trendy and numberless celebrities followed the suit. However, as of this month, many of them including Serena Williams, Reese Witherspoon, Shonda Rhimes, Lil Durk, Travis Barker, and Meek Mill have abandoned their non-fungible avatars.

Serious Accusations

Apart from the hype bubble being deflated, it is not all roses in the planet of the Apes. The co-founder of Yuga Labs (owner of Bored Ape Yacht Club) Wylie Aronow (a.k.a. Gordon Goner) tweeted “We’ve become the target of a crazy disinformation campaign accusing us [...] of being super-secret Nazis.”. Details can be read on: decrypt.co/103799/bored-ape-founders-nazi-d..

Personal Scams and Their Impacts on Businesses

Even the possibility of a wallet being compromised is a nightmare for any of us.

Seth Green, the Family Guy voice actor, had announced that he got phished and his four NFTs were stolen. The scammer sold "Fred" to someone else named Mr Cheese (a.k.a. DarkWing87) for almost $200,000. Green contacted Mr Cheese last month and Mr Cheese claimed that he was not aware that he was paying for a stolen NFT as it was not flagged suspicious back then. Green and Mr Cheese came to an agreement valued $300,000 for Fred's return.

The NFT had a "reported for suspicious activity" tag on OpenSea so that it could not be sold at the time. It is now open for sales!

Here comes the interesting part of the story:

Green's NFT was stolen just a couple of days before he was going to reveal that the NFT was going to be featured on White Horse Tavern, his new animated series. The theft of the NFT stolen paused the development of the show as the NFT could be commercially adapted no longer. There are also some voices thinking all this story may be an elaborate marketing scheme for his upcoming show. Read more on: pcgamer.com/our-national-nightmare-is-over-..

Collective Scams

The Bored Ape Yacht Club had a severe issue with their Instagram account: it was hacked!!! A phishing link designed to steal users' NFTs was sent out and at the end , NFTs at the total value of $3,000,000 were stolen. A spokesperson from Bored Ape Yacht Club told Gizmodo “Rough estimated losses due to the scam are 4 Bored Apes (of Yacht Club), 6 Mutant Apes, and 3 Bored Apes (of Kennel Club), as well as assorted other NFTs estimated at a total value of $3,000,000.”. More on Gizmodo: gizmodo.com/instagram-hacked-nft-stolen-bor..

Technical Flaws on NFT Platforms

Chris Chapman bought an NFT from Bored Ape Yacht Club last year. In December 2021, he listed his NFT for sale on OpenSea for about $1 million. Approximately two months later, he was notified that the ape was sold for roughly $300,000 - not a million!

It was later found out that a crypto scammer exploited a flaw in OpenSea’s system so that the NFT could be bought for significantly less than its worth set by its owner. OpenSea offered him about $30,000 as a compensation - or as a joke :) More on: nytimes.com/2022/06/06/technology/nft-opens..

Closing Words

It is an explicit fact that surfing on the Internet is like walking in a minefield. We had Trojans inserting unwanted advertisements, then they started stealing sensitive information such as credit card details, and now NFTs are at stake. So, please beware that we are all potential targets of cybercriminals and therefore think twice or even thrice before clicking on a link.

Although we are living hot summer days on the Northern Hemisphere, the NFT world is going through winter. As Orson Welles sings "...after summer comes winter..."; this winter could have been anticipated. Just as the spring will come next!

About the Apes, they are performing well during these turbulent times in spite of their visible step back. So, they will prevail for some more time (no investment advice).