Daily dose of toxicity, as promised.

Have you been following our unfortunately extensive coverage of Bored Ape Yacht Club thinking, ‘in spite of the exorbitant price tag, this really resonates… if it were just a little more plagiaristic and racist, I’d be all in’? No? You’re a somewhat well-adjusted human being? Same. But fuck us, apparently. We still get Lil Baby Ape Club anyway.

Lil Baby Ape Club was one of the buzziest projects on OpenSea prior to a ‘forensic investigation‘ by a 25-year-old NFT collector named Roh. (As I write this sentence, Agatha Christie projectile vomits in her grave.) Through whatever means of forensic investigation are available from mom’s basement, Roh discovered that LBAC is a fucking cyanide cocktail of poor taste and intellectual property theft.

The collection initially listed on OpenSea — already a derivative BAYC rip-off — turned out to also be a direct duplicate of an unreleased collection by an NFT collective based in Russia. It’s hard to feel much sympathy for the original creators, however, considering the collection features attributes titled ‘Skinhead’, ‘Jam Boy’, and ‘Monkey Pride’ — racially charged terms accompanied by explicit Nazi imagery.

(See also the abomination above.)

The duplicate collection sold out before the original collection even launched and remained in the Top 10 on OpenSea long after the story of its plagiarism broke. As of publication, there are three variations of the title with registered domains on the NFT marketplace, although one now leads to a 404 page.

I’d like to give OpenSea the benefit of the doubt and say the stolen one is probably the one they took down, but given their history, we can’t be sure. Regardless, unless you’re down to fund a rugpull at best, or some far right Russian Holocaust deniers at worst, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say steer clear of this one. 

Not all happenings on the blockchain are quite so soul draining, but having lost a couple grand in holdings over the past week, we’re not feeling generous. We are, however, feeling eternally grateful to get to set this letter down for a few days and spend time with our families, probably sobbing gently in their arms. After this story, much needed.