I regret to inform you that today's big NFT controversy revolves around a frog's ass. For some reason, an NFT collector was willing to part with $500,000 to own an image of Pepe's behind. But soon after the purchase, he accused the artist of scamming him, because it turns out he's not the only proud owner of the Pepe lewd. NFT collector Halston Thayer is suing Pepe creator Matt Furie because, apparently, his "one-of-a-kind" rare Pepe wasn't very one-of-a-kind at all. Thayer claims that he was promised that his Pepe would be completely unique, and only sold via the auction he won for half a million dollars. However, Furie later went on to give out the same NFT for free, a move that Thayer claims amounts to "unfair, deceptive, untrue, and misleading advertising". "This action arises from Defendants’ unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent business practices[...]with respect to an auction for a particular non-fungible token (“NFT”) that led Plaintiff and others to grossly overbid on the NFT", the lawsuit reads (thanks, Web3 is going great). Thayer's legal team accused Furie of intentionally misleading buyers about the ass NFT's scarcity, as to inflate the price. They say that Furie did this knowing his team would distribute the same NFT for free after the auction ended.
"They advertised the auctioned NFT as the only one of the existing 100 that would be auctioned—promising that the remaining 99 would be withheld from circulation indefinitely—in order to increase the bid amount", the court document reads.
"As a result of Defendants’ conspiracy and wrongful conduct, Plaintiff suffered damages in the amount of more than $507,084.00 when the value of the NFT he purchased from the auction for $537,084.00 plunged to less than $30,000.00 upon Defendants’ disbursement of 46 identical Pepe NFTs for free."
Thayer is demanding a trial by jury, so our thoughts are with the members of the public who may be called on to assess the validity of these claims. Furie is yet to publicly respond to these allegations.