Like I have always told my friends around me, the difference between a scammer and a legitimate entity is their intentions. A scammer can go through any length to earn your trust to leave you vulnerable to being scam. That is the case for the “Supposedly” Big Daddy Ape NFT investors.
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The Big Daddy Ape NFT is supposed to be a Solana based NFT consisting of 2222 unique NFTs, just like every other NFT project they came with some promises, had a discord channel and tried to gain investors trust. They even went as far as being verified by an NFT auditor body called Civic Pass. These people were ready to go through any length to gain investors trust. The process in trying to get a civic pass is a risky one for a supposedly illegitimate project. Before one can get a civic pass, they have to undergo some verifications. Verifications that have to do with verifying your identity, both in 3D and submitting certain documents.
After this verification process from Civic pass, the scammers still ran off with the money. We know that when “do your own research” is emphasized, we say things like, try to know their identity, try to know how their site feels and look like, some go to the length of saying try to know if they are audited by a notable auditor body. But it seems like all these are not enough to stop an intended scammer from scamming its victims.
Other NFT projects, when they release NFTs after promising to provide a lot of great utilities end up ghosting their investors thereby leaving their investors with worth less Jpegs. But the Big Daddy Ape NFT investors were not even given a chance to have a jpeg. They were put in a discord group, told to make payment to a particular address and wait for their NFTs. After over 9,000 SOL sent to the address the group became locked and their social media and website went off.
This act is making people doubt the authenticity of Civic pass because Civic pass is supposed to give people the confidence that they have been verified and their information can be provided to the authorities just incase they want to run away with people’s money.
Magic Internet Money has given room for scammers to want to scam and take advantage of people. You have to be carful but how careful is being careful, because no matter how hard you try to be careful, you can still get scammed. Being careful helps you get less scammed.
The CEO of Civic pass is of course disappointed because this is a dent in his company’s trust and integrity. He promised the case has been handed to the authorities and these people will be brought to justice. The wallet address where the SOL was sent to, apparently has transferred the SOL to a wallet address on Binance, I guess to cash out their over $1 Million scam money. This is the highest form of NFT scam so far.
In this crypto space, scammers will always be present, there are people that want to make life better for the community and they are people that want to take advantage and rip off the community, intentions are different but most times presentations are similar.
