Things move so quickly in the decentralized world that one day a certain product or service is the hottest name in the market and then the next day, “poof!” Entire companies, crypto coins and crypto products, such as NFTs and crypto mixers become infested with financial fraud and either move to the Darkweb or disappear altogether as quickly as they arrived. As I have covered fairly extensively, the NFT is sort of the poster child for this market phenomenon. What was a star in the eyes of many is now so tarnished that the purchase of an NFT should come with a warning label.

Danger: this product does not protect the buyer from fraud, identity theft, or financial ruin

The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)is my case in point for the week. Have you heard the avalanche of bad news surrounding this one time, must-have NFT? Investors in the BAYC’s collection of apes have been getting robbed left and right, and the media has been fairly loud about it, mostly because the owners of these valuable jpegs that were victimized are celebrities. The list of celebrity BAYC members who have been robbed is pretty long, but the theft of actor Seth Greene’s (Robot Chicken) collection of apes has taken front and center stage. As a result, his story is overplayed at this point, but since it is somewhat weird it stays in the news cycle.

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