Quick take:
- Starcatchers Co-Founder has been linked with the account that cashed out the collection’s rarest NFT.
- One Starcatcher in a Twitter stream unpacked how the team’s activity negatively affected the community.
- “MetaMehdee” revealed the rarest NFT #1755 initially listed at a floor price of 0.8 ETH, sold for 1.5 ETH, before the reveal, then for a whopping 30 ETH after the reveal.
Starcatchers co-founder has been linked with the Binance account that received proceeds from the 30 ETH sale of NFT #1755. According to Twitter user MetaMehdee, who also happens to be a member of the Starcatchers community, the NFT #1755 was the rarest in the collection and initially listed at a floor price of 0.8 ETH before selling at 1.5 ETH just before the unveiling.
The aggrieved Starcatcher has produced details backing his claims, which raise questions about Starcatchers’ promise of openness and transparency.
In a long Twitter stream, MetaMehdee wrote, “I was part of the Starcatchers discord since the first days the project launched and was super bullish. the team claimed to be transparent and planning to build for the long term which I really liked,” before adding that he was probably naive at the time.
He said that he realised that some items were being purchased at far higher prices above the floor price before the reveal. Traditionally, some NFT projects launch through blind auction minting giving every member of the community an equal chance to purchase the rarest NFTs in the collection.
This made the community member more curious, thus saving the specified NFTs to investigate later after the reveal.
MetaMehdee started by highlighting NFT #1755, which also happens to be the rarest in the collection. It was acquired for 1.5 ETH when the floor price was 0.8 ETH. The wallet that bought the NFT did not have any other transactions, which may be indicative of a covert move to “snap [it] from the unsuspecting buyer.
OpenSea records also show that the buyer sold it immediately for 30 ETH landing a windfall of profits.
In ordinary circumstances, the person who cashed out for 30 ETH would have been considered lucky since blind minting is purposely used for that — so that some lucky collectors can land the rarest collections without paying a high premium.
However, MetaMehdee dug deeper, tracking the funds to a Binance wallet that also received multiple deposits from the Starcatchers co-founder and lead artist “Beutrec”.
After taking a closer look, MetaMehdee found that the wallet had received about 50 ETH from the Starcatchers collection. “That’s around 50eth in net profit stolen from the “community” and sent to @beutrec,” he wrote.
After reporting the issue to another Starcatchers member @ethmaurice, MetaMehdee concluded that he too may have been in on the loot.
“After [the] reveal I went to the discord asking how this was possible. Here’s @ethmaurice reply. Now either @ethmaurice is dumb or he was in on it… I strongly suspect the latter,” he wrote.
Despite seemingly duping its community, the Starcatchers team maintains it is committed to the long-term goals of the project. It recently announced the launch of its delegate and proposal system.
The collection currently has nearly 5,700 owners and has reached a transaction volume of 7.9k on OpenSea.
The community offered mixed responses with some claiming the team kept the rares for themselves before dumping them to the community for 30 ETH.
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