"Can't believe @Trip a multibillion company is also a rugged project," wrote one person in response to the shutdown announcement.
Trip.com accused of "rug pull" as it shuts down its Trekki NFTs
Travel company Trip.com has some perturbed crypto holders on its hands, after shutting down the "Trekki" NFT project it launched in June 2023. The company's dolphin-themed NFTs had come with a roadmap that promised eventual staking features, "travel to grow" and "travel to earn" mechanisms, and other developments, which have been cancelled. However, Trip.com promised that its discount coupon functionality would remain.
Logan Paul files defamation lawsuit over Coffeezilla's coverage of his failed CryptoZoo project
A year and a half after threatening to sue YouTuber Coffeezilla for his series of videos exposing influencer Logan Paul's (alleged) role in (allegedly) scamming his large following with a failed blockchain game, Paul has followed through on the threat. Although he acknowledges in the lawsuit that the project was definitely a scam, Paul says that he too was duped by several "conmen" who he'd brought on as advisers.
In the lawsuit, Paul claims that Coffeezilla knowingly falsely accused Paul of being in on the scam in hopes of getting more attention on his videos. Paul is seeking more than $75,000 in damages.
In January 2024, Paul filed suit against the advisers he's described as "conmen". He's also pointed the finger at them while defending a potential class action complaint from defrauded investors.
Bored Ape-themed fast food restaurant shuts down
It's hard to believe that the hamburger joint themed around the owner's Bored Ape NFT failed to take off. Although there was novelty value in the themed restaurant, which for a time boasted that it accepted cryptocurrency payments, the excitement seemed to wear off quickly after a few early news articles. After a while, the restaurant's crypto payments became spotty, with employees saying the system was unwieldy and unpopular among customers.
Some more recent Yelp reviews described fairly mediocre food, which "[t]he NFTs don't make up for".
The restaurant opened in April 2022, a month after owner Andy Nguyen purchased Bored Ape #6184 for $268,000, along with three Mutant Apes for an additional combined $187,000. #6184 became the restaurant's logo, and the others were incorporated into the restaurant's branding. The NFTs haven't been resold since, although it's unlikely they could recoup close to their original purchase prices — Bored Apes have been averaging a little under $50,000 in recent sales, and Mutants around $8,500 each.
"Munchables" crypto game exploited for $62.5 million
The "Munchables" crypto game explains: "Schnibbles grow on every realm across the Munchable's world. Each realm has their own unique and distinctive schniblet, and the Munchables react differently based on their compatibility to the schniblets fed to them. When creating an account for the Munchables, you must choose the location of your snuggery." Right then.
Things went awry in the land of the schnibbles and snuggeries when an attacker siphoned around 17,400 ETH ($62.5 million). Various descriptions of the attack circulated, with blockchain sleuth zachxbt attributing it to a recently hired developer, and crypto developer 0xQuit claiming the theft appeared to have been "planned since deploy".
Some began discussing the possibility that the Blast layer-2 blockchain might forcibly roll back the chain to "undo" the hack. Some have argued this is contra to the crypto ethos or would set a bad precedent, while others have argued that as a blockchain focused more on gaming and experimentation and less on decentralization and other facets of crypto ideology, it would be a reasonable step.
Some hours after the attack, the exploiter was convinced to return the funds.
Previously rug-pulled Lucky Star Currency project somehow rugs again
The astrology-based Lucky Star Currency project rug-pulled for $1.1 million in October 2023. You'd think that might be the end of it, but on March 22, 2024, ownership of the project was transferred to a malicious smart contract that then drained tokens priced at almost $300,000 from those who still held them.
You almost have to admire the tenacity.
Wilder World game suffers $1.8 million theft, blames contractor
Wilder World is a blockchain-based racing game that uses all the buzzwords: blockchains, artificial intelligence, and metaverse. On March 16, someone with access to the project deployer's private key upgraded legacy contracts and transfer the project's $WILD and $MEOW tokens to themselves. Altogether, the attacker profited 515 ETH (~$1.8 million), which they then laundered through the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency tumbler.
The project blamed the theft on a previous contractor who had the private key. They also explained that the attacker seemed to be a developer based on the fact that they had "specialized knowledge of ZERO's internal security systems".
Remilia Collective reports multi-million dollar hack
"Charlotte Fang", the leader of the controversial Remilia project (known for its Milady NFTs), claimed he was hacked and drained of ETH and NFTs potentially worth several million dollars. Although the project's treasury used a multi-signature model, the private keys were stored in one password manager, which Fang says was compromised.
The attacker stole around 490 ETH (~$1.8 million) and $58,000 USDC, along with more than 130 Milady NFTs, 320 Remilio NFTs, and hundreds of derivative tokens issued on the NFTX platform. Based on floor prices, the assets are valued at north of $6 million.
The mechanism of the attack is still uncertain, though Fang has said he suspects malware that could have intercepted credentials to his Bitwarden password manager. Some have expressed skepticism around the "hack", suggesting it could have been inside job. The Remilia group had suffered a separate $1 million loss in September 2023 — blamed on a rogue developer — and failed to implement many security safeguards after that incident.
NFPrompt discloses hack
A Binance-incubated platform called NFPrompt claims to be "the first Prompt Artist Platform in Web3" — with "prompt artist" referring to people who come up with prompts to feed into large language models. More succinctly, it's a platform to sell the NFTs you've made out of AI-generated images.
The platform announced on March 15 that it had suffered a "critical security incident" that it attributed to "a group of hackers" who were able to gain access to funds belonging both to the project's users and the project itself. They did not disclose how much was taken.
The project announced that it was working with the FBI, and had contacted centralized exchanges to ask them to freeze stolen funds.
Yuga Labs acquires Moonbirds amid speculation of insider trading
On February 16, the NFT giant Yuga Labs announced it would be acquiring the Moonbirds NFT project. This adds to list of blue-chip NFT collections controlled by Yuga Labs, which already included their original Bored Ape Yacht Club and spin-off NFT collections, and the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections they acquired in March 2022. Decentralized!
Anyway, after the acquisition was announced, prices for Moonbirds spiked, as was to be expected.
What wasn't expected was a notable spike in trading in the days leading up to the acquisition announcement, in which some wallets began accumulating large amounts of Moonbirds and related NFTs. One such wallet purchased 80 Moonbirds, 71 Moonbird Mythics, 28 Oddities, and 13 Mythic eggs in the week leading up to the announcement, and enjoyed several hundred thousand dollars in profits after the acquisition was announced.
Creator of "Robotos" NFT project, once collaborating on a TV series with TIME studios, accused of rug pull
Pablo Stanley, an artist who created the "Robotos" generative NFT collection, posted two final messages from the Robotos Twitter account. First, "it was a good run! thank u, all!", then an image of the Twitter log-out button with "forever and ever".
Rewind to November 2021, when it was announced that TIME Magazine's film and production studio would be collaborating with Stanley to develop a children's animated TV show based on the Robotos NFTs. The announcement helped to drive interest in the NFT collection, which reached a peak floor price of around 1.5 ETH (~$5,000 at the time).
Since then, no show has materialized, and the collection's floor price has dwindled. NFTs from the collection have recently sold for around 0.015 ETH (~$42). In the project Discord, Stanley claimed that TIME had lost interest in the project after the writer's strike. He also wrote that he had lost faith in web3: "Glad you still believe. It's hard for me to believe in it anymore." He explained that he had viewed Robotos as a "personal side project", and that he was "sorry if that's not enough for most people, but that's all I have the appetite for, and that's all I can offer."
- Tweet thread by HashBastardsNFT [archive]
- Tweet thread by Robotos [archive]
- Tweet by FotiWeb3 [archive]
- "TIME Studios, in Partnership with Nelvana, to Begin Production on Two Animated Children’s Series Based on New Characters from Creators of 'Robotos' and 'the littles' NFT Collections", press release from TIME [archive]