Minecraft NFT Game Dev Makes Off With $1 Million, Says Sorry
The disappearance was born of an "impulse" decision to stop harassment.
Blockverse, a play-to-earn PvP Minecraft server using Ethereum, definitely didn't disappear once it had gotten the funds for the project. As per the team's statement, "everything was fully legitimate" and a sudden onset of threats of doxxing led to the "impulse" deletion of the official website, Discord server and game server.
Phew. Could you have imagined if this was some sort of rug pull? To the uninitiated, rug pulls in cryptocurrency are when a seller of a blockchain-based product or project pool as much money as possible and then exit stage left without leaving a trace. This happens frequently - the founders of Africrypt ran off with $2.2 billion worth of their clients' bitcoin after promising to lead a novel investment firm using cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. All in all, over $2.8 billion was nicked through rug pull manoeuvres throughout 2021, accounting for nearly 40% of the total stolen from cyber-crime victims across the world.
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Purchasing one of the 10,000 NFTs offered by Blockverse granted the player access to the game upon launch. Each NFT cost 0.05 ETH, which is equivalent to $127, raking in a tidy sum for the team in a mere eight minute pre-order period. Now, that's a heck of an investment in what could be sympathetically called a work-in-progress title considering some gamers balk at the prospect of paying $70 for new-gen game. So, when Blockverse disappeared from the Internet, customers started sniffing for clues like a bloodhound on the trail of a cheeseburger.
The community discovered a Coinbase address attached to the creators of Blockverse as well as a Cloudflare IP address. This information was shared with the supporters and, surprise surprise, Blockverse popped back to Twitter with an explanation. "Everything was fully legitimate: our contract was verified, the game infrastructure was fully set up, and our launch went well, albeit with some small bumps along the road," said the team, adding that their excitement over their success caused them to ignore a number of issues like high gas fees, the scale of the server, and the lack of utility of $DIAMONDS.
"18 hours in after launch, the FUD quickly descended into harassment, threats, and doxxing," continued those behind Blockverse. "The team noticed all this and panicked, deleting the discord server on impulse. Everything else was closed to prevent the continuation of harassment that had occurred so far. Even then, the plan was to reopen once everyone had time to calm down. There is absolutely no reason for us to leave permanently, as all the technical work and infrastructure for the project thus far has already been put in place. It was actually more work to take things down than to leave it up, but again, everything was done in the interest of protecting personal safety."
Actually, Blockverse isn't able to return right now because the state of things has "only worsened" and the team is seeking advice from professionals on how to proceed safely. "We're aware of how much damage we've caused already, but we hope that this gesture towards the community can help us get back on track," it said.
Featured Image Credit: Blockverse, Alesia Kozick via PexelsTopics: Minecraft, Cryptocurrency