Recently, hacker group Anonymous reportedly placed the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection on its radar.
On August 14th the group posted a video on Twitter promising to investigate the various allegations against the Top NFT collectibles which included racism, simianism, Nazism, and occultism.
The authenticity of the video is however questionable to NFT Twitter.
What is the Anonymous group’s message for BAYC holders?
The hacktivist group in their accusation against BAYC holders said “As we navigate through the curated research that openly ties the artwork to these accusations, we can’t help but wonder why none of these accusations have actually been put to rest.”
The group stated that they would take the time to open a discussion about the BAYC collection.
“we don’t believe in half measures and want to be thorough with our investigation.” they said.
further Adding that the investigation against the “heinous accusations” may take several months.
They also added that while they are aware of the responses from Yuga Labs, they have not come across any statement by BAYC to refute the accusations.
“BAYC collectors and enthusiasts, we feel empathy for what you may be going through right now. Even just allegations can be truly unsettling but the thought of even one of these allegations being true, must be intolerable to think of.”
Ryder Ripps’ accusations against BAYC
Ryder Ripps’ at the beginning of the year accused BAYC of having deep links to alt-right 4chan meme culture. He set up a website called gordongoner.com to detail his claims that the BAYC collection is racist and went on to liken the BAYC logo to the Nazi Totenkopf emblem. Yuga Labs subsequently released multiple statements refuting the accusations and went ahead to file a lawsuit against Ryder Ripps for false advertising, trademark infringement, unjust enrichment, and misleading consumers.
Is it really the Anonymous group?
NFT users have come forward to question the authenticity of the video. An account, BookSweepers claimed that the Twitter account that posted the video, as well as its linked Instagram and YouTube pages, are fake.
The Twitter account ( handle @anonewsco) that posted the BAYC video only had 14,100 followers and was unverified as opposed to the Anonymous Twitter account (handle @YourAnonNews ) that has over 7.9 million followers.
Earlier this year an Anonymous verified Facebook page in a now-deleted post praised Ryder Ripps and Pauly Cohen. The real Anonymous Twitter page earlier this year called out a DeFi token that the fake account defended a few months back. They also added that they are not on Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube.
Some members of the Nft community have also alleged that the video is from Ryder Ripps himself.
A tweeter user Jay-Albert.eth said “From what I’ve seen, they don’t record camera angles from different views of the speaker,” .“He also sounds similar to Ryder and the team to me. I think it’s fake.”