Rug Pull: Evolved Apes NFT Project
October 7, 2021 - Well it bounds to happen sooner or later. Onchain analytics indicated that Evolved Apes just did a rug pull and approximately 797 ETH has been liquidated from the project's wallet into Binance and other centralized crypto services.
For an interactive chart of the transaction flow shown below, visit Breadcrumbs.app
Several media outlets have also confirmed the rug pull (where the developers/owners disappear with the project funds) including Vice.
Evolved Apes started as an NFT project on OpenSea as a collection of “10,000 unique NFT trapped inside a lawless land. Fighting for survival, only the strongest ape will prevail.”
The Evolved Apes project raised over 700 ETH from the initial public sale of the NFTs intended to project-related expenses like artist payments, marketing and development.
As of today (10/6) the project smart contract has been depleted leaving behind a balance of 80 ETH. The funds were sent into two addresses:
0xd247c547d84a62c3c614ddd50d4153bb16b11cb4 – received 638 ETH
0x27699d9e30269f241b7cfb96e2a6cdd9ea46d8e1 – received 159 ETH
Of the 797 ETH total, most have been liquidated thru Binance and other decentralized services. The remaining funds are currently resided at address:
0xfd9990ea0542aad6bfc8323c4a89ef1196ea241e
0xac0e3b5d884958538001788b6abff648d642b4d2
0x2dce9c47ccf47393a449c1bfd70011fe7878b2ae
0x2d2165d0b3dde63a4d997ded376df3429e984060
0xc82558084158cd848337436df86490e8e4125f85
Members of the Evolved Apes community have vowed to return as Fight Back Apes and to work with OpenSea to have the 4% royalties from original project diverted to the community into a multi-signature wallet to prevent recurrence of the original experience.