Bored Ape collectors experience searing eye pain after “ApeFest” party
All this time I thought the lasers were going in the other direction (BAYC #9291) (attribution)
Bored Ape collectors attending an ApeFest party in Hong Kong have now been subjected to the kind of eye pain the rest of us have felt for years having to look at their hideous, pricey JPEGs.
The going theory is that event organizers skimped on lighting costs by using UV lights intended for sanitization, not for entertainment, causing burns to the eyes and skin. The eye condition, photokeratitis, is better known as “snow blindness” or “welder’s flash”, as it more typically affects people who haven’t worn proper eye protection while welding or while exposed to sunlight reflected from ice and snow.
Several attendees reported having to seek emergency medical treatment after experiencing excruciating eye pain and vision problems, and tweet threads began circulating giving various other ApeFest attendees advice on recovering from the painful condition.
Bored Ape creator Yuga Labs belatedly issued a tweet two days after the incident, claiming only a small fraction of attendees had experienced “eye-related issues”, but encouraging anyone with symptoms to “seek medical attention just in case”.
Sam Bankman-Fried convicted on seven charges
After less than five hours of deliberation, a jury convicted Sam Bankman-Fried of seven fraud and money laundering charges. The conviction followed a five-week-long trial which culminated in Sam Bankman-Fried himself taking the stand, only to appear evasive and sullen as he told prosecutors he couldn’t recall many significant events from his time as FTX CEO.
Sentencing is scheduled for March 28, 2024, though scheduling could be affected by factors including whether the US decides to continue pursuing an additional five charges also set to be tried in March.
- “Sam Bankman-Fried: guilty on all charges”, Molly White’s Newsletter [archive]
Monero discloses that its community crowdfunding wallet was drained
Monero’s Community Crowdfunding System (CCS) funds projects that aim to improve the ecosystem of Monero, a privacycoin. The CCS is funded by donations, and up until September 1, 2023, held a balance of 2675.73 XMR (~$460,000). Two months after the fact, “Luigi” (a Monero developer and one of the two people with access to the wallet seed phrase) disclosed on Github that the wallet had been drained entirely. According to Luigi, he only discovered this a month after the theft.
The other person with access to the wallet is a former Monero developer named “fluffypony”, or Ricardo Spagni. He surrendered to US authorities in July 2023 for extradition to South Africa, where he has been charged with invoice fraud against a cookie company (think chocolate chip, not software). However, he was released in late September, and has been working to “address this matter” while free but under court supervision.
Ryder Ripps loses Bored Apes infringement lawsuit, ordered to pay $1.6 million and legal fees
A judge has ordered Ryder Ripps and his co-defendant Jeremy Cahen to pay almost $1.6 million in disgorgement and damages after they created a collection of identical NFTs to the popular Bored Ape collection. The duo were sued for trademark infringement in June 2022 over their RR/BAYC project, which Ripps and Cahen tried to argue was an art project created to draw attention to racist imagery they and others have identified in the project.
In August, Ripps tried unsuccessfully to get the lawsuit dismissed via anti-SLAPP protections.
Now they’re on the hook for $1.375 million in profits they earned from their copycat project and $200,000 for domain cybersquatting violations. They also must
