Art Gobblers NFT project by “Rick & Morty” Creator Renews Debate Over NFT Influencer Ethics

Many collectors rubbed the wrong way by the collection.

Art Gobblers seems to have given preference to NFT Influencers, a group of people who use social media to generate interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Many have stated the use of influencers to sell NFT tokens or crypto is unfair because it can be misleading to those who are not familiar with the industry.

The latest project by “Rick and Morty” creator Justin Roiland has renewed the debate over the ethics of NFT influencers. The project, called Art Gobblers, is an experiment where Roiland will sell one-of-a-kind NFTs that are “gobbled up” by the highest bidder. The NFTs will be created by well-known artists in the space, such as Beeple and Tron founder Justin Sun.

Some have criticized the project for being a way to cash in on the popularity of NFTs, while others have praised it for its creativity.

The Ethereum NFT project launched Monday and currently, secondary sales are astronomical. The project was launched by Roiland and crypto investment firm Pradigm via a free NFT mint and the secondary sales of the project have already surpassed $26 million.

When it comes to new and innovative blockchain projects, Art Gobblers is definitely up there. The project, which is still in its early stages of development, allows users to mint their own artwork as Page NFTs and trade “Goo” tokens to yield even more NFTs. This unique approach has grabbed the attention of many within the crypto community, and today’s artwork reveals only served to further excite people about the project.

Art Gobblers nft

But while much of the chatter around Art Gobblers is focused on the level of trading demand and the project’s novel approach, a significant portion of the discourse is revolving around the role of notable NFT influencers on social media. Some are questioning whether or not these influencers were compensated with free and valuable NFTs, and whether or not they’re fueling a system in which powerful voices are taking advantage of their platforms without proper disclosures.

It will be interesting to see how Art Gobblers develops in the coming weeks and months, and whether or not these concerns about influencers will continue to be a topic of discussion.

The original mint was of 1,700 Gobbler artwork NFTs that were all available for free by those added to the allowlist. Another 300 NFTs were reserved for project creators and contributors and a final 8000 was set aside to be slowly released over a 10 year period.

The recent launch of the Art Gobblers NFTs has been met with significant controversy, with some users claiming that the event was fraudulent. Specifically, some feel as if the influencers and content creators who were able to mint NFTs early on gained an unfair advantage, and that the subsequent surge in prices on secondary markets is evidence of fraud.

While it’s unclear whether or not these allegations are true, it’s clear that the Art Gobblers launch has generated a great deal of excitement—and controversy—amongst the crypto community.

One member stated that situations like this are why “NFTs will never be taken seriously” with others not being so polite with their admonishment.

NFT projects always come with the ideation that everyone is on equal footing, thus the tagline WAGMI (We Are All Gonna Make It!) was born. But it has been noticed by many that NFT collectors with social capital are using their influence to personally benefit from these projects, thus throwing WAGMI into the face of those that play fairly. The anger thrown at Art Gobblers shows continued growth in the negative perception of NFT projects.

Many of these collectors are only known by pseudonyms and that complicates making clear any public disclosures or agreements made for those influencers to benefit from drops. Social Media Influencers are required to clearly disclose paid endorsements by the FTC but by utilizing a pseudonym some influencers can bypass that rule.

Some in the blockchain community feel that the Art Gobblers’ NFT launch was fraudulent, as it seems that the creator’s hand-picked artists and Web3 builders to mint the tokens, who in turn nominated others to join the list. Some minters tweeted that they had gained access simply by participating in the project’s Discord server.

While the Art Gobblers NFT launch may have seemed like a success to some, others feel that it was rigged. Some minters feel as if they were only given access to mint NFTs in exchange for promoting the launch, and that this was not made clear to them ahead of time. Others worry that the creator hand-picked artists and Web3 builders to mint NFTs to give the launch an air of legitimacy and that those who were not chosen were effectively shut out of the process.

One artist Andrew Wang was a part of the project and spoke on how he was not given a whitelist promise but instead was running an affiliated account on Twitter. He spoke of how proud he was to have been able to work on the project.

There are of course certain influencers that have told on themselves as Fxnction twitted about how fast he flipped his free mint for a massive profit.

Fxnction stated he was not given a whitelist spot for shilling the project but instead was given the spot due to being a part of the project’s Discord server. Fxnction offered their thoughts on the current situation with the following comment:

“I think [people] can do [whatever] they want with their assets, even if they got them by having followers,That being said, it becomes a thin line if someone is actively shilling and pushing it, then just exits. That’s where the community controversy starts (understandably).”

The thought that anyone can become rich by being first in line before the hype is an old thought but there is still suspicion that these influencers were given preferential treatment in hopes of generating more interest.

There were others who showed the positive side of the situation with things such as debts being paid, financial stability achieved, and more.

Whether these influencers were given preferential treatment is still up for debate but the fact remains that the project did aid some in changing their lives.

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