Unfortunately, rugpulls are becoming more and more common in the crypto and NFT space. Unfortunately, this week we saw a rugpull from both Tokyo Ten and Crazy Lemur club. According to Twitter, the Tokyo Ten team will walk away with over $3 million after a successful mint and some aftermarket sales.
About the Tokyo Ten Rugpull
Before the project launch, it created quite a bit of hype, amassing over 14,000 followers on Twitter, which has now been deleted. People seemed to like the art, with 3.5k owners holding when the rugpull happened. Additionally, 231 ETH (just over $1 million) was traded on aftermarket sales via Opensea. The Opensea page is now shut down, but you can still see the art here.
One Twitter user, @DrewKaiju said: “I’m so disgusted by that project. I was so hyped for it and it looked cool. Then the reveal – I got one and the people who got good ones treated others like trash. Even if you get something normal in a project you should still feel like you’re getting value, with Tokyo Ten you did not.”
The Tokyo Ten Rugpull has affected many people, but many more are offering help to the victims on Twitter.
About the Crazy Lemur Club Rugpull
Crazy Lemur Club was another that looked positive, with over 3,000 followers pre-mint for a 5,000-item NFT project. What is believed to have happened, as messaged by a staff member in their now inactive Discord to everyone in the channel, is that the previous owner decided to change all passwords and delete the website due to a dispute in terms of money with staff members. It seems to be the previous owner, nicknamed Dog, who took the money out of the project and made the final decision to shut everything down. Twitter user @mekyuverse claimed that “red flags were there from the get-go”, he proceeded to say said red flags were “Delayed reveal. Ignoring discord chats aka devs never around. Never answering any questions about the roadmap and saying that one celebrity endorsement will kick start this project. Clearly, their intentions were to pump and dump. ”
What this Means for the Space
Unfortunately, these situations just make the space look bad. Although they’re becoming more common, there are certainly more good projects out there currently than bad ones that have rugpulled. These circumstances that happen just add an argument for the ‘right-click save’ people. The ones who are against NFTs and don’t believe in them long-term.
Despite all the research in the world, a project can still look good until post-mint. This is where they may just exit and leave their holders who may have $1000’s invested into the project. Sadly, there is nothing that can be done to the people who are left holding, they just lose out on any money that was invested.
However, sometimes positives can be taken out of the situation. We often see groups created for those who were subject to a scam or rugpull of a certain project. We saw this for Fame Lady Squad, who told buyers that the founders were women, but turned out to be men. And now, it has now been done for Crazy Lemur Club and Tokyo Ten.
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This article is educational material.
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