- MekaVerse has been accused of perpetrating a huge fraud on the NFT community
- The project finally revealed its 8,888 robot NFTs on Wednesday amid accusations of insider trading
- Individuals relating to the MekaVerse project were said to have inside knowledge of the rarest NFTs
The creators of MekaVerse have been accused of rigging the much-anticipated drop of their NFT collection. 8,888 MekaVerse robots were delivered to their lucky holders on Wednesday after weeks of hype, but that excitement soon turned to anger as it was revealed that Mekaverse team members and those working for the project already knew which ones were the rarest and made sure they picked them up ahead of the launch.
MekaVerse Rode Hype Wave
MekaVerse first came to the NFT-buying public’s attention on August 30 when the project launched its social media profiles and gave the cryptocurrency world the first glimpse at the Gundam-inspired artwork. The Transformers-style robots have taken the NFT world by storm, with NFT fans desperate to get their hands on one of the 8,888 Mekaverse NFTs.
Such was the clamour that a 6.4 ETH ($22,400) price floor was set on OpenSea even before the artwork was made public and, crucially, before the rarity or aesthetics for each piece.
However, when the collection was revealed on Wednesday, it didn’t take long for questions to be raised about the legitimacy of the launch and distribution of the Mekas:
The MekaVerse collapse is more than just fomo and weak hands capitulating. This is actual fraud. Insiders had access to hidden metadata and were able to snipe legendary and ultra rare prereveal mints from the unsuspecting collectors. Even the devs were involved in this. It’s bad. pic.twitter.com/88N44g09hG
— Beanie.eth (@beaniemaxi) October 14, 2021
🚨Finished on-chain analysis of the @MekaVerse #NFT drop: Below are the FACTS & my conclusion on how it was exploited by bots & trait snipers❗️ And If there’s any merit to all the “fud”😱
⚠️Please share to spread awareness ⚠️
WTF is going on with #MekaVerse?! …
— OKHotshot.eth (@NFTherder) October 14, 2021
The suggestion is that those on the inside already knew which MekaVerse NFTs were going to be the rarest and therefore the most valuable, with the most rare being awarded to those who helped create the project.
Alongside this there were allegations that the drop was “botted” with some collectors creating hundreds of wallets to create fake engagement and massively increasing their chances of victory. The drop allegedly made $8 million for the MekaVerse creators, with some suggesting that the designs were far from unique:
Mekaverse generated $8 million in revenue from a rigged sale of these unique pieces. So unique. pic.twitter.com/effmjNA1up
— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) October 14, 2021
“A Lot of Questions”
MekaVerse acknowledged that there were “a lot of questions about yesterday’s event” and pointed to a Discord post regarding an explanation of their randomization process to explain how it was that some insiders happened to get awarded some of the rarest NFTs:
Yesterday was the MekaVerse reveal, and you could finally see your Meka! 🤖 🚀 What a day, phew… ! 🤯
We know you have a lot of questions about yesterday’s event, and we’ll try to answer them all for you 🤍
Thread ↓
— MekaVerse (@MekaVerse) October 14, 2021
It seems however that, despite how attractive the MekaVerse NFTs actually are, the entire project has been tainted by the launch.
