An NFT investor is suing Matt Furie, the creator behind the Pepe meme, for his role in a hack that left his collection worthless. Jaggedsoft, who is also the creator of the Binance application programming interface (API), claims Furie and the NFT marketplace Chain/Saw enabled the hack by engaging in mismanagement, willful misconduct, and negligence of the project.
Furie created Pepe the Frog, and over the years, the meme has become prominent in both online and crypto communities. The artist did not join the Web3 space until recently, and his partnership with Chain/Saw led to the release of the NFT collection Replicandy. Pseudonymous crypto trader Path revealed that Jaggedsoft is the largest collector of Replicandy NFTs.
Within the third week of June, Furie’s NFT collection Replicandy was targeted by an IT worker who was hired as a developer for the project. The worker belongs to a North Korean hacker group, and these entities are known for their notoriety in infiltrating crypto projects.
On-chain sleuth ZachXBT explained that the IT worker first transferred ownership of Replicandy from Furie and Chain/Saw to his address. Then the attacker continuously minted NFTs and sold them in bids until their floor price plummeted to zero. Afterwards, they withdrew the mint proceeds from the contract, totaling at least $310,000, and transferred them to their addresses.
Since the hack happened, neither Furie nor Chain/Saw have said anything about reimbursing users or handling the incident. Their X handles, which were active prior to the event, have been mute since June 18.
Jaggedsoft insists the project could have avoided hiring a North Korean hacker if they had done their due diligence on workers before employment. He insists that skipping basic checks, hiring the wrong people, letting a hack happen, and trying to hide it is not just unethical, but potentially criminal concealment.
The NFT investor also disclosed that Chain/Saw’s creator threatened to “fuck my life up” if he went ahead with the litigation. However, he said he had nothing to lose since his collectibles were already worthless.
Meanwhile, the Binance API creator initially did not want to involve Furie in the lawsuit as he only created the art. However, Furie’s role in concealing the incident and other deceptive behaviors caused a change of heart; now he is mentioned in the lawsuit. Will litigation make Furie and Chain/Saw to reimburse users? Stay tuned for more updates.
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