The "Cipher Punks" NFT project tried to sell NFTs with illustrations of various cypherpunks, or at least the ones that were listed on Wikipedia. The project said that it intended to "[honor] everyone involved in the CypherPunk movement. They are our heroes, and we need to recognize them". Apparently honoring them did not also involve asking for their consent to be used in the project, as Jillian York tweeted on December 26, "I don't approve of this whatsoever and would like it removed."
ItsBlockchain, the group behind the project, subsequently announced that they would scrap the project and apologized. This apology rang a little hollow, to me, after they retweeted a tweet saying "never meet your heroes" in reference to the individuals asking that the project stop using their likeness without their consent, for their own profit.
Web3 is Going Just Great
...and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already smoldering planet.
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