Gaming NFT became the means of the first major fraud -apkrig
One of the most common allegations that appears in discussions about gaming NFTs is the potentially high risk of fraud. Although it would almost certainly not be committed by large companies such as Ubisoft, Square Enix or Konami, which have already shown interest in NFT-related games, the new trend may attract even much smaller and noticeably riskier entities. If you still haven’t imagined how such a scam could happen, PC Gamer magazine describes the awkward situation around Blockvers, the unofficial Minecraft server that players should get ticket by purchasing one of 10,000 NFTs. These were skins for avatars that players dress up on the mentioned server, and it will probably not surprise you that after all the NFTs issued, it was just dusty. Their authors and administrators of the Blockvers collected approximately $ 1.2 million in the cryptocurrency Ethereum in less than eight minutes, but tried to disappear a few days later. At one point, the server shut down, the official website and Discord were deleted, and players quickly became aware that they had fallen victim to the first major NFT gaming scam.
The beginning of the whole story seems innocent, considering that there is a myriad of servers that players can access only after paying a one-time or monthly fee. The connection with the NFT could therefore seem like a more elegant and modern solution, which also comes with its own possibilities ticket sell to another bidder. Everyone was familiar with the fact that secondary sales would incur fees from secondary sales, but this is no exception in the field of NFT. In other words, the sale of skin for less than 3,000 crowns may have seemed a bit bizarre, but it was not unusual that would send warning signals to those interested in advance. However, as mentioned above, shortly after the sale of all tokens, the ground fell on the operator, and perhaps only growing pressure from deceived players forced them to respond and apologize after a few days of silence. However, a full explanation and especially the solution of the situation has not yet come and it does not seem that the way to it leads at all.
“Hello everyone. We feel that we owe everyone an apology and especially an explanation, “begins the message just appeared on Blockvers’ Twitter account four days after the end of the NFT sale. “Blockverse was supposed to be a great project because we invested a huge amount of time and resources in it before it was launched. Everything was completely legitimate – our contract was verified, the gaming infrastructure was fully set up and the launch went smoothly, “recap the operators of the server, which does not work at the moment. They further explain that immediately after the sale of the NFT, they set to work on a future extension for Blockvers, but just then they realized that they apparently underestimated all possible problems. Specifically, they mention the high transaction fees for interacting with the blockchain, the insufficient capacity of the Blockverse servers, and the reckless use of $ Diamond tokens generated in the game. “Eventually, things got out of hand […] and 18 hours after the launch, when the pressure increased and turned into harassment, threats and disclosure of our personal information, the team panicked and impulsively deleted Discord, ”say the people behind Blockvers.
The shutdown of the servers and the deletion of the website then came in order to prevent further harassment and breaches of the personal security of the operators. take everything backuntil the situation calms down again. “In fact, it took more work to throw everything away than letting it run, but everything was done in order to protect personal safety,” the reasoning states specifically, but is not followed by anything that would indicate a return to the original state and therefore the possibility to apply those tickets in the form of NFT. “Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to restart the server because the whole situation has worsened. We are disappointed that the community has jumped on false accusations so quickly, but we still believe in our project and negotiate with experts on how we can proceed, ”adds the owners of Blockvers. He sees the transfer of all access and data to someone from the community as one of the eventualities, who could then run the server himself, but the players don’t like it very much.
It is very likely that the Blockvers’ operators contacted themselves simply because they had been tracked down Coinbas records and could no longer hide behind the wall of Internet anonymity.
Almost none of those involved are convinced that the project will return. On the contrary, there are relatively strong threats, including lawsuits, if the situation is not settled and the value of the tokens issued is not met. In addition, it is very likely that the Blockvers’ operators contacted themselves simply because they had been tracked down Coinbas records and could no longer hide behind the wall of Internet anonymity. This is, after all, the problem associated with personal security breaches, which the server operators talk about in their report, supplemented by other comments from cheated players. “They thought they could disappear, but now they realize we have these clues,” said community members on their own Discord, which they launched in light of the events described and published more information about the negotiations with Blockvers.
If the entire server is to be handed over to the community, its leaders are asking the Blockvers authors for an additional 200-400 ETHs so that they can hire people to manage the server. That’s basically what they do fraudsters service, if they were most likely to avoid prosecution and still have 100 ETH from the original sale of the NFT in the most pessimistic scenario, but it would also mean the functioning of Blockverse and the fulfillment of all the rights belonging to the owners of these NFTs.
