Buyers of Bored Ape NFTs sue after digital apes turn out to be bad investment
Buyers of Bored Ape NFTs sue after digital apes turn out to be bad investment
Lawsuit: Sotheby's $24M sale to FTX gave Bored Ape NFTs "an air of legitimacy."
It's hard to feel sorry for anyone who fell for a very obvious art grift. Even harder to be sorry for those caught grifting.
Even a cursory understanding of value would have told these people that pretty looking receipts are a piss poor investment, but no, they were convinced that NFT's (a tech they obviously knew nothing about) held intrinsic value despite having nothing of value backing them.
Everyone caught up in the NFT art grift did so because they thought they could make a quick buck being ahead of the wave of the next big pump and dump like crypto and got fucked by their hubris. The grifter's meanwhile were out here selling them graffiti'd up CVS receipts and saying they were worth the Mona Lisa.
The result? A perfectly valid and valuable technology has been completely disregarded by the public because 90% of people were too stupid to think before they bought into a tech they didn't understand and they all lost money to grifters. Worlds most widespread art grift and everyone was played a fool, and a valuable tech has been discredited, misunderstood, and shunned.
The amended lawsuit alleges that "Yuga colluded with fine arts broker, Defendant Sotheby's, to run a deceptive auction." After the sale, a Sotheby's representative described the winning bidder during a Twitter Spaces event as a "traditional" collector, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said it turned out the auction buyer was now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, whose founder Sam Bankman-Fried is in jail awaiting trial on criminal charges. Ethereum blockchain transaction data shows that after the auction, "Sotheby's transferred the lot of BAYC NFTs to wallet address 0xf8e0C93Fd48B4C34A4194d3AF436b13032E641F3,77 which, upon information and belief, is owned/controlled by FTX," the complaint said. Speculation that FTX was the buyer had been percolating since at least January 2023.
So basically, they're alleging Sotheby's, Yuga, and FTX staged the auction to pump the price. Bold claim, curious how this will play out.
The amended lawsuit alleges that "Yuga colluded with fine arts broker, Defendant Sotheby's, to run a deceptive auction." After the sale, a Sotheby's representative described the winning bidder during a Twitter Spaces event as a "traditional" collector, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said it turned out the auction buyer was now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, whose founder Sam Bankman-Fried is in jail awaiting trial on criminal charges.
I don't think it's fair to pin this all on people who got duped. Calling FTX, a company now known for throwing around large sums of stolen money to pump up the brand, bribe government officials, and fix prices, a "traditional collector", is beyond misleading.
lmao even they can never be a true investor
i don't think you can sue for buying the losing ticket of crypto gambling
What a bunch a dumb apes
Hahahahahaha
Bored Ape, in particular, was tried as an attempt to bring digital art into the fine art market to use as a tax dodge. If this case goes to court I hope it's going to shine a big bright light on the fact that a lot of the fine arts market has been a giant tax dodge scam for decades. 🤞
Not that it's been a secret, but exposure is good.
Poor Ape Rot Club.
They were fungable after all!
Whaaaaaaaaaat? Who could have possibly have seen this coming??
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Sotheby's auction house has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by investors who regret buying Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs that sold for highly inflated prices during the NFT craze in 2021.
"Sotheby's representations that the undisclosed buyer was a 'traditional' collector had misleadingly created the impression that the market for BAYC NFTs had crossed over to a mainstream audience," the lawsuit claimed.
Investors previously sued Bored Ape creator Yuga Labs, four company executives, and various celebrity promoters including Paris Hilton, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Hart, Snoop Dogg, Serena Williams, Madonna, Jimmy Fallon, Steph Curry, and Justin Bieber.
The lawsuit said it turned out the auction buyer was now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, whose founder Sam Bankman-Fried is in jail awaiting trial on criminal charges.
Ethereum blockchain transaction data shows that after the auction, "Sotheby's transferred the lot of BAYC NFTs to wallet address 0xf8e0C93Fd48B4C34A4194d3AF436b13032E641F3,77 which, upon information and belief, is owned/controlled by FTX," the complaint said.
"While the Executive Defendants made hundreds of millions of dollars, investors were left with NFTs worth a fraction of their artificially inflated value," the original version of the complaint in December said.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
A fool and his money…
Wow who would've thought
Yeah. They really should've bought the lion!
Seriously though. This was so obvious right from the start. I can't believe how gullible and naive people are.
oh no... no one could've seen that one coming...
