The creators of the “Big Daddy Ape Club” NFT collection gained 9,136 SOL, or approximately $1.3 million, and then vanished, marking the largest “rug pull” in the history of the Solana blockchain.

A rug pull is a kind of scam that creators show some things that make them look to be a legit project and then they take all of the investors’ money and disappear.

The “Big Daddy Ape Club” scam is notable because this NFTs project was verified by Civic. On December 23, Civic, a decentralized identity verification firm, announced that it had “verified” the Big Daddy Ape Club NFTs through its Verified by Civic Pass program.  

However, on January 11, when 2,222 ape-themed NFTs were already minted, the creators just disappeared. After that, their Twitter, Discord, and the collection’s official website were all deactivated.

One day later, Civic CEO Chris Hart stated on Twitter: “We are aware of the reported Big Daddy Ape Club rug pull and that there are victims involved. We take this attack on the NFT community seriously, and are taking steps to offer all the assistance we can.” 

He added: “Civic is 100% invested in getting to the bottom of this, and we do have the relevant identity information we captured which can aid in formal investigations,” “The Verified by Civic Pass program verifies and captures information about NFT projects. Here’s what we verify: control of project Twitter handle, control of project domain, and identity verification of project founders. Founder verification includes ID document capture and limited-scope document verification; 3D FaceScan; facial match comparison between the 3D face of the live user to their 2D photo identity document; and sanction, PEP, and Adverse Media listings screening.”

Because of this statement, many NFTs traders asked Civic to release Big Daddy Ape Club creators’ personal information publicly. After that, he answered Decrypt: “The identity of the individual who held themselves out as the founder of the BDAC project was verified through our program,” he added, “We are cooperating with law enforcement to assist in their investigation, but do not know how long their investigation will take.”

This is not the first time this team has been scammed. Some Twitter accounts indicated that Big Daddy Ape Club is a three-time scammer. They utilized the same strategy in all three scams and took a lot of money from investors.

DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.

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