Yuga Labs has finally broken its silence over the conspiracy theory that the Bored Ape Yacht Club project featured racist caricatures and Nazi symbolism.
Over the past seven days, X2Y2 generated $144.16 million worth of NFT sales compared to OpenSea’s $117.64 million, while Crawley Town F.C. is set to launch a tokenized third kit.
As previously reported, the BAYC conspiracy theory was back in the spotlight on June 20 after YouTuber Filion posted a video examining alleged evidence that artist Ryder Ripps originally gathered earlier this year.
In a Medium blog post posted via Twitter on June 25, Yuga Labs co-founder Gordon Goner said the team finally decided to clear things up after the theory got so much attention that one of their favorite podcasters started talking about it.
“We haven’t responded in more detail to these allegations because, frankly, they’re insanely far-fetched.”
“However, we woke up this morning to a horse /// ster we respect talking about this conspiracy theory and it was pretty surreal. Made us feel like it was time to come out and put an end to it all,” he added.
In particular, Ryder Ripps claimed that the cover of BAYC NFT featured racist cartoons of blacks and Asians, and the project’s logo and branding had several allusions to certain Nazi symbols and language. The artist also created a BAYC-derived NFT collection called RR/BAYC as a satire and protest against Yuga Labs.
While the team did not address all of the points raised against BAYC, it fervently denied allegations that its logo was derived from the Nazi Totenkopf (skull and crossbones) symbol. He also confirmed that BAYC’s use of Apes is a tribute to the crypto degens and not to a racist troll. However, not everyone was satisfied with their answer, as several points were left unanswered.
This news is published and verified by the NFT News media team.
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