The Sotheby’s auction house has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by investors who regret buying Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs that sold for highly inflated prices during the NFT craze in 2021.

  • db2@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Nope. Too bad, they knew what they were buying. That they convinced themselves the value they attributed to it would remain or increase is entirely on them. The fact that so many others saw it through a realistic lens means they had the same ability and chose not to.

    But that said, the proceeds for them should also get clawed back and 100% put toward scam identification education. Neither side in this one should walk away enriched.

    • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is the part about wealthy people that I just love. If muh investment pays off, f-off society, I was smart and made a wise investment. I deserve to keep 100% of the proceeds. But when things go south, “Save meeeeeeeeee, you [society/regulators] shouldn’t have let me go through with it”. Then we’re back to the socialism they say they hate so much and that they lobby their own money to deny to the common folk.

      Oy vay

    • Chronographs@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Honestly I’m ok with them keeping their money, afaik everyone knew where they were buying they were just dumb enough to think it would ever be worth something. If we want to claw back money from people we should start with the ones ruining the environment to make the line go up

    • atempuser23@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s the whole point of legitimate auction houses like Sothby’s. They pay experts to provide some legitimacy and sanity. It’s one thing for me to say that a kids finger painting is worth 50k, it’s a different thing for a trained art appraiser at an auction house to set that price.

      Sotheby sets the initial prices and provides estimates of value. They were supposed to be the responsible adult in the room. Now if they values them at say $1000 and they sold for 100,000k that’s on the buyer. If the value was set for 80k and it sold for 90k that’s a different story.

  • omgarm@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    The fact that they still sell for 50k is insane. It’s a shitty picture with a convoluted proof of ownership. The fuck.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    That’s an average price of over $241,000, but Bored Ape NFTs now sell for a floor price of about $50,000 worth of ether cryptocrurrency, according to CoinGecko data accessed today.

    Wait till they realize the actual value is $0.

    • DrQuint@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The 50k value is itself propped up by fake transactions anyways. Since these sales are public, they can just push some around between two paid off clients to give the impression this is their worth.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    GEE, WHO THE FUCK COULD’VE FORESEEN SUCH TURN OF EVENTS, HUH??? If only there were people that realized very early on that NFTs were absolutely pointless, right?

    Sarcasm aside, even being the USA, I doubt there’s any law that criminalizes shit investments. Despite everything, NFTs and cryptocoins themselves still aren’t legally considered scams, so investing in them and losing money due to their price fluctuations aren’t crimes.

    Yuga colluded with fine arts broker, Defendant Sotheby’s, to run a deceptive auction.

    Isn’t that the modus operandi of art auctions in general? There’s always at least one or two fellas doing everything in their power to pump up prices of certain pieces or specific artists, since they have big collections.

    Sotheby’s Metaverse, an NFT trading platform opened after the auction, “operated (or attempted to operate) as an unregistered broker of securities.”

    Ooohh, now that could be interesting, though I highly doubt they’ll get more than a slap on the wrist, if it gets that far.

  • Sassy@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I hope the defendant loses, but the damages shouldn’t be awarded to the fools who bought the NFTs. That money should go to literally anyone else, because they’ve already proved they can’t be trusted with money. Fuck both sides of this dispute.