Yuga Labs' social media lead resigns after racist and antisemitic tweets resurface

One might think that a social media lead might have a grasp on his own social media accounts, and might have scrubbed damning tweets made only shortly before they began their position.

One also might think that a company embroiled in constant racism accusations might be cautious about screening its employees.

Neither of these things happened, though, and someone dug up vile tweets by Shpend Salihu, better known as NGBxShpend. Salihu resigned shortly after the tweets came to light, writing that they had "become a distraction from the [Bored Ape Yacht] Club and what we're all about."

Bored Ape collectors experience searing eye pain after "ApeFest" party

Bored Ape #9291. A brown-furred ape, wearing a slouchy orange beanie and black t-shirt, has its mouth open in a sort of smile. There are red laser beams shooting out of (or perhaps into) its eyes.All this time I thought the lasers were going in the other direction (BAYC #9291) (attribution)
Bored Ape collectors attending an ApeFest party in Hong Kong have now been subjected to the kind of eye pain the rest of us have felt for years having to look at their hideous, pricey JPEGs.

The going theory is that event organizers skimped on lighting costs by using UV lights intended for sanitization, not for entertainment, causing burns to the eyes and skin. The eye condition, photokeratitis, is better known as "snow blindness" or "welder's flash", as it more typically affects people who haven't worn proper eye protection while welding or while exposed to sunlight reflected from ice and snow.

Several attendees reported having to seek emergency medical treatment after experiencing excruciating eye pain and vision problems, and tweet threads began circulating giving various other ApeFest attendees advice on recovering from the painful condition.

Bored Ape creator Yuga Labs belatedly issued a tweet two days after the incident, claiming only a small fraction of attendees had experienced "eye-related issues", but encouraging anyone with symptoms to "seek medical attention just in case".

Ryder Ripps loses Bored Apes infringement lawsuit, ordered to pay $1.6 million and legal fees

A judge has ordered Ryder Ripps and his co-defendant Jeremy Cahen to pay almost $1.6 million in disgorgement and damages after they created a collection of identical NFTs to the popular Bored Ape collection. The duo were sued for trademark infringement in June 2022 over their RR/BAYC project, which Ripps and Cahen tried to argue was an art project created to draw attention to racist imagery they and others have identified in the project.

In August, Ripps tried unsuccessfully to get the lawsuit dismissed via anti-SLAPP protections.

Now they're on the hook for $1.375 million in profits they earned from their copycat project and $200,000 for domain cybersquatting violations. They also must transfer control of two domain names, two Twitter accounts, and the RR/BAYC smart contract. Worse yet, the court found that this was an "exceptional case" because of the defendants' behavior, which included being "obstructive and evasive", and "unnecessarily and inappropriately ma[king] disgraceful and slanderous statements about Yuga, its founders, and its counsel" throughout the case. As a result, they will also have to pay Yuga's attorney's fees.

Bored Apes' Yuga Labs lays off employees

A sad-looking ape with dark grey fur, wearing a yellow rain cap and a striped shirtBAYC #5262 (attribution)
Even the best known NFT brand can't escape the effects of a collapsing industry. Yuga Labs, the company behind the blue-chip Bored Apes NFTs and related collections, and the acquirers of collections including CryptoPunks, has announced that it will be joining the many other companies in the crypto world performing layoffs. They did not disclose how many employees would be losing their jobs.

"It's a challenging time, not only for our industry but also for the global economy," wrote Yuga Labs CEO, apparently hoping that people ignorant to the past year of disaster across the NFT industry might be willing to attribute Yuga Labs' struggles to macroeconomic forces and not the implosion of the crypto — and particularly NFT — world.

Trader loses 14,377 $APE (~$61,000) when they sell their Bored Ape

An illustration of an ape with cream colored fur, wearing a hawaiian shirt on an orange background.Bored Ape #7810, who came with a $60k bonus (attribution)
The former owner of Bored Ape #7810 presumably intended to agree to sell the ape to another buyer for 70 ETH (~$130,900). However, it's unlikely they intended for that buyer to also be able to access the staked $APE they had accrued. With this particular staking mechanism, the Bored Ape effectively serves as the "key" to the staked ApeCoin, and so it transferred to the NFT's new owner right along with the NFT.

Someone steals the Bored Ape belonging to former NFL star Dez Bryant

An illustrated ape with leopard print fur, wearing a crown, shades, and a sailor suit. It has its mouth wide in a grimace and is on a bright orange background.Bored Ape #2902 (attribution)
The latest ape escape has affected Dez Bryant, a former NFL player now turned "web3 innovator". Bryant was the proud owner of Bored Ape #2902, an ape with leopard print skin wearing shades, a sailor shirt, and a crown. However, on April 7, Bryant was apparently hacked, and the thief stole not only his ape but Moonbirds, World of Women, and RumbleKongLeague NFTs (one each) and some various cryptocurrencies.

The Bored Ape would likely fetch somewhere around $125,000 if resold. The other three NFTs would likely resell for somewhere around $8,700. Together with around $3,400 in stolen tokens, Bryant's total loss is around $139,000.

After some observers spotted the suspicious-looking transactions, Bryant confirmed on Twitter: "Yes my ape was stolen and I don't know how this is crazy".

hideyoapes suffers $200,000 wallet drain

An illustration of an ape with cream-colored fur. Its eyes are half-lidded and its mouth is open in a grimace or smile. It has a tuft of brown hair on its head.Bored Ape #5917 was the most expensive NFT stolen, selling for 68.6868 wETH (~$112,750) (attribution)
"I still don't quite understand what happened here", wrote hideyoapes.eth after their wallet was drained of around 30 NFTs. They had previously owned several pricey NFTs from the various Yuga Labs collections, including a Bored Ape, Mutant Ape, three Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs, a SewerPass, and two Otherdeeds.

The thief sold all the NFTs and then transferred the proceeds from the sales to their own wallet. Altogether they made off with 127.3 wETH (~$208,000).

On Twitter, hideyoapes explained that they had downloaded and installed the MetaMask wallet extension from MetaMask's official website. "I didn’t think anything of it because it was the legit site and verified chrome app. While I was sleeping all my assets were sold," they wrote. At this point, it's not clear how exactly the hack was perpetrated.

Yuga Labs' 3-week-long "Dookey Dash" game tournament ends amidst allegations of widespread cheating

A monkey sits atop what appears to be some kind of underwater motorcycle, navigating through a murky sewer pipe with various obstacles in the distanceDookey Dash (attribution)
Yuga Labs released an endless runner game called "Dookey Dash" (really) where players compete to see how long they can keep their character navigating through a sewer pipe without crashing. Access to the game is granted through "Sewer Pass" NFTs, which can be claimed by people who own Bored Apes or Mutant Apes, but which were also trading on the secondary market for around 3.1 ETH ($5,100).

Yuga Labs has said that, following the end of the three-week-long game tournament, the Sewer Passes with non-zero scores in the game will transform into something new, with the idea that higher scorers may receive more valuable NFTs.

This, of course, incentivized users to try to cheat in the game by creating bots, changing the browser-based game code to eliminate obstacles, or access game seeds that allowed them to predict the layout of a course run. Sewer Pass holders began paying others to play their game for them — either more skilled players, or players who were using these tools. Some were charging up to 2.5 ETH (~$4,200) to obtain scores of 700,000 or more for those who hired them.

Yuga Labs has promised to review gameplay to ensure that those who cheated are disqualified. They've also warned people buying Sewer Passes after gameplay ended that if they buy a pass that is determined to have cheated, it will be worthless. Some are skeptical of Yuga's ability to accurately detect cheaters, and others have expressed concern over false positives in the game's cheat detection that appeared to be caused by slower Internet connections.

NFTs reportedly stolen from influencer CryptoNovo, flipped for at least $525,000

A pixel art human head, wearing a grey hoodie and with a brown goatee, on a red-brown background.CryptoPunk #4608 (attribution)
Crypto influencer CryptoNovo tweeted, "I just got hacked!!! Are you kidding me!?!" with a screenshot of valuable CryptoPunk NFTs being transferred from their account. An attacker apparently transferred from CryptoNovo's wallet two or three CryptoPunks, one Bored Ape, one Mutant Ape, three Meebits, and two CloneX NFTs — all "blue chip" NFTs that fetch high prices.

The thief quickly flipped all of the NFTs for around 417 ETH ($525,000). It's unclear if one of the CryptoPunks was stolen, as it was transferred to a wallet to whom CryptoNovo has previously made transfers, but that NFT too was sold for 75 ETH ($94,200).

The thief made a pretty penny, but the loss to CryptoNovo is more substantial based on how much money they spent on the NFTs. They had purchased the Bored Ape in August 2021 for 30 ETH (then around $100,000), and CryptoPunk #4608 in September 2021 for 290 ETH (then $850,000).

The attack appears to have been phishing-related.

Scammer steals fourteen Bored Apes from one victim, flips them for over $1 million

A Bored Ape with grey fur, wearing a red baseball cap, a green army jacket, and a blindfold over its eyesBAYC #2060, which the scammer claimed to want to license (attribution)
A scammer spent a month setting up a con in which they stole fourteen Bored Ape NFTs belonging to one individual. Posing as a casting director at a real film production company—complete with a fake website, a fake partner company, and fake individuals pretending to have signed deals with the company—a scammer was able to convince the collector that they were interested in paying $13,000–$17,000 to license a Bored Ape for use in an animation.

After some back-and-forth, with legitimate-looking contracts and falsified emails appearing to come from the real company's real founding director, the NFT collector was asked to use their crypto wallet to sign a contract, via the fake company partner website that had been set up.

When the collector did so, the smart contract drained the collector's wallet of its fourteen pricey Bored Ape NFTs, then accepted the highest offers that were outstanding on each of the Bored Apes, netting 852.9 ETH. The scammer converted the stolen ETH to the DAI stablecoin, making off with $1,075,000 in DAI.

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