The developers behind Racoon Secret Society are staging quite extreme demonstrations of the fragility of NFTs. Basically, they orchestrated an NFT Rug Pull. The developers transformed the NFT Collectibles into bones, claiming that the “community is sick.”
In a tweet, the project boldly revealed its intention. “All this time, we were working on this project with just one goal. To show people what they are actually buying when they click that “mint” button. All raccoons are dead now, and you – the “NFT community” were the ones who killed them.”
In the thread, the developers went on to qualify the “vulnerability” of the smart contracts used to code the NFT Project. That is, the so-called developers are copy-pasting the same code within the community. The project even cited the wildly successful and leading NFT Club Project: Bored Ape Yacht Club as an example.
The developers behind the NFT Collectible are demonstrating the fragility of NFTs in an extreme way. Credit: Racoon Secret Society
Racoon Secret Society: What happened?
Looking at it from the technical aspect, the team executed this through the metadata. In the case of NFTs, it contains the essential properties, including its name, description, links to the images and other assets that give an NFT its value. Thus, the developers can essentially “kill” a collection with ease if the metadata is changed and amended.
Technically, the developers have the power to “kill” the Collection. Credit: Twitter (@TheRaccoonSS)
In a final tweet, the Racoon Secret Society developers said, “OpenSea will update the metadata from the contract and all Raccoons will turn to a pile of bones,” which will remove the metadata, rarity traits and art of the NFTs. So the NFT holders will be left with “only the meaningless records on the blockchain.”
The community of more than 28,000 owners is not taking the news well. Especially because technically, this bold move is possible. Unfortunately, it seems the developers can just snap their fingers and the Collection’s value will drop and regress.
Was it just a giant NFT Rug Pull?
The Racoon Secret Society has a trading volume of 191 ETH or almost $600,000 over the last 30 days. Lots of people have lost out and tensions are definitely rising in the NFT scene.
To clarify, there’s an ongoing debate whether this is just a marketing ploy or a bold heist for an NFT rug pull. The community pointed out an alternative scenario wherein the change in the metadata would bring more exposure and attention to the project. Then, they hope the Racoon Secret Society developers will swoop in to save the day by airdropping new NFTs once the contract has been updated.
The team shared a screenshot of the smart contract to prove their point. Credit: Twitter (@The RaccoonSS)
However, this is probably unlikely. Actually, the news is likely to shake the NFT Community as it reveals the industry’s vulnerability. Much like the case of the Fame Lady Squad. The project was embroiled in a controversy when it was revealed that Russian male developers were pretending to be women. Subsequently, they turned over the project to Project Phoenix, a legitimate all-women team.
Then, there was also the case of the “Untamed Elephants,” where the Founder sold the collection to a new owner. Allegedly, the founder also drained the wallet. To make matters worse, the funds for Elephant Crisis were also missing.
Regardless, this is such an eye-opener of the harsh realities and risks that come with seemingly decentralized NFT collections. Unfortunately, the Racoon Secret Society NFT rug pull is unlikely to be the last. Preferably, research every project before investing in NFTs – it really makes a world of difference.
