🤔 Which celebrity got dunked on by lawyers?

GM, GM. The weekend has come and gone, which means Bean Boy is back for another action-packed week of all things crypto and web3. You missed us…right? Anyways, today’s edition can be summed up in two words, celebrities and NFTs. With that being said, let’s see what’s in the pod for today!

How we looking today?

The classic Sunday-Monday dump, I remember this used to happen a lot during the bull run. Does this mean the bull run has started ???

SHAQ… YOU GOT DUNKED ON

Shaquille O’Neal, basketball superstar, is among the dozen celebrities that used to promote, the now-bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX. Honestly, no one ever thought FTX would fail this miserably. Unlike many, Shaq went above and beyond for FTX, even to the point where FTX called Shaq ‘Shaqtoshi’. Even Bean Boy’s humour is better than that…

Obviously, Shaq is included in the class action lawsuit against FTX due to his promotions and lawyers have been attempting to serve him for the past three months. Surprisingly, the lawyers had been so desperate to find Shaq that they asked a judge to allow them to serve O’Neal via Twitter, Instagram and email, which was declined. How is this gigantic hunk of a man successfully hiding from so many people ???

As many things do, Shaq’s streak came to an end with lawyers serving him the papers on Sunday with the exchange captured on his home surveillance cameras which he has been told not to delete. We’ll be waiting for you in court Mr O’Neal.

THE FALL OF THE BORED APES?

The ‘king’ of all NFT’s, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs, has corrected by 8% falling from ~58 Eth to ~53 Eth within the last few days because of a selling spree by one whale. Is this Bean Boy’s chance to finally own one of these apes ??? It’s within Bean Boy’s budget if it drops by another 52.99 Eth…

That whale goes by the name, ‘Franklin’, a well known crypto-twitter influencer, recognised for constantly flexing his 27 BAYCs that he used to own. Now, you may be asking yourself, what forced him to sell off most of his apes ? As many BAYC holders do, Franklin leveraged his NFT’s by collateralizing them for a loan on BendDAO. This allows holders still maintain ownership of their NFTs whilst attempting to invest and grow the pool of ETH they borrowed.

Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for Franklin as he got scammed for all the ETH he borrowed against his BAYCs. According to Franklin himself, he lost 2000 ETH (~$4.2m) by investing in a ‘gambling/ponzi’ related project which ended up ‘rugging’ or stealing all the money away. Yikes, that must’ve been a tough bullet to bite on.

On top of this, Franklin admitted that he had some problems with gambling, with a combined loss of ~650 ETH (~$1.3m) on Rollbit, a famous crypto-gambling company. Adding up both of his losses, that’s a whopping ~$5.5m loss, ouch… Anyways, in order to repay the loans, the only viable option was to sell off his BAYCs… Let’s hope Franklin doesn’t have to pay any taxes this year…

THE RICH GET RICHER

As many of you know, former president Donald Trump, released his own NFT collection, Trump Digital Trading Cards, back in December 2022. The 45,000 digital collectibles featuring Trump in different outfits and backgrounds sold out within a day with a individual price tag of $99. A steal at today’s prices of ~0.4 ETH (~$840).

According to a filing from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Trump has made anywhere from $100,001 to $1 million from sales of Trump-branded non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The filing also states that CIC Ventures LLC, the company behind the NFT project, received over $5 million from speaking engagements. Did I mention Trump is registered as “manager, president, secretary and treasurer“ at CIC Digital LLC and CIC Ventures LLC. Overall, its obvious Trump made a killing off his collection, once a businessman always a businessman.

PEAS IN THE POD

• 💨 Hundred Finance loses $7 million in Optimism hack. Another one bites the dust…

• 🐕Shiba Inu market cap overtakes Binance USD stablecoin. The return of the meme coin season ???

• 🤔 US Congress to introduce new draft bill for stablecoins. How long has the government been working on this….

HOW YOU BEAN - A READERS CONFESSION

My Twitter profile picture, a Bored Ape, got recognised by a stranger who was looking over my phone on the train. At first I was excited as I thought it was another person that invests in crypto / NFTs but the guy started asking me about my net worth. Next thing I know, the guy comes behind me and tells me to give hand over my wallet or “you’re dead“. I gave the guy my wallet and he got off at the next stop… Luckily, I had nothing of value in there as all my money is tied up in coins and NFTs that are down 80% 😂.

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MEME OF THE DAY

That’s all for us today. While you have the time, why not refer a friend to us?

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.