Evolved Apes: 10,000 NFTs, a Promised Fighting Game and a Vanishing Act

In crypto slang, a rug pull is when the people behind a project suddenly take the money and run, pulling the rug out from under everyone standing on it. In September 2021, at the height of the NFT boom, one of the most famous examples involved a collection of cartoon apes and a video game that was never made.

The project was called Evolved Apes: 10,000 unique ape NFTs on Ethereum, sold with the promise that holders would be able to use them in an online battle royale fighting game. Shortly after the sale, the project's anonymous developer, known as "Evil Ape", disappeared, along with 798 ETH, worth about $2.7 million at the time.

The pitch

The NFT market in mid-2021 was full of ape-themed collections, riding the success of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Evolved Apes tried to stand out by promising utility: these apes wouldn't just sit in a wallet, they would fight. Buyers were told the NFTs would work as characters in a game in which apes battled each other, with the last one standing as the winner.

It was a smart pitch for its moment. "Play-to-earn" was booming thanks to Axie Infinity, and an NFT with a game attached felt like it had a future, not just a price.

The disappearance

The game never arrived. Not long after the collection sold out, Evil Ape went silent, and the ETH raised from the sale was gone. Holders who had been promised a fighting game were left with pictures of apes and no developer to answer for them.

Without the money, there was no realistic chance of the original game ever being built. It was a pattern that would repeat again and again in the NFT market over the following year: a big promise, a fast sell-out, and a creator who could not be found when buyers came looking for answers.

In November 2021, Evolved Apes was already being cited alongside the Squid Game token as an example of the scams spreading through crypto gaming. You can read that story in our piece on the SQUID rug pull.

The charges

For almost three years, Evolved Apes looked like one more case that would never be solved. Then, on 6 June 2024, the US Department of Justice announced charges against three UK nationals: Mohamed-Amin Atcha, Mohamed Rilaz Waleedh and Daood Hassan. They were charged with wire fraud and money laundering in connection with what prosecutors called a pump-and-dump scheme that raised about $3 million in total.

According to the charges, Atcha and Waleedh promoted the project, including by hiring a social media influencer. Prosecutors alleged that the game was never developed and the proceeds were kept. They also alleged that Waleedh later tried to recover funds stuck on an exchange by identifying himself as the project's lead marketing manager, and then sent them to a crypto address controlled by Hassan.

The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, said investors had been misled with false promises about developing a video game. Each defendant faced a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted. The charges are allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

WGC's take

Evolved Apes is a reminder that a game promised in an NFT sale is just that: a promise. Buyers were not purchasing a game. They were paying in advance for something that did not exist, from someone they could not identify, with no way to get their money back if it never appeared.

The good news is that the 2024 charges show these schemes are not always consequence-free. The blockchain's permanent record cuts both ways: it makes theft easy to see, even if it does not make it easy to undo. The bad news is that the people who lost money in 2021 were still waiting years later. If a project asks you to fund a game before anyone has played it, the safest assumption is that you are funding the person, not the game. Our editorial on the lessons of blockchain gaming's crashes has more on how to spot the warning signs.