Boasting 1.7 million followers, and counting Mark Cuban among its investors, @NFT was undoubtedly responsible for introducing countless Instagrammers to the world of digital art.
A high-profile account dedicated to non-fungible tokens has been banned by Instagram.
The permanent suspension of @NFT follows allegations that the page had repeatedly posted sponsored content — without clearly disclosing it was advertising.
Boasting 1.7 million followers, and counting Mark Cuban among its investors, @NFT was undoubtedly responsible for introducing countless Instagrammers to the world of digital art.
But last Wednesday, the page was accused of "promoting a shadowy cabal of scammy copy pasta NFT projects without proper disclosures, thus taking serious advantage of the less informed."
In a damning Twitter thread, @topshotfund — a keen NFT collector — claimed "an increasing number of normie friends" had reached out to him about projects he had never heard of. All of these collections were later linked back to the @NFT Instagram account.
He shared screenshots of posts championing three "eerily similar projects" that were all clearly inspired by Bored Ape Yacht Club, one of the most-coveted NFT collections in the world.
3.) they monetize on a daily basis by promoting eerily similar projects that practice scammy tactics without disclosing that they are ads— TSF | Space Cowboy (@topshotfund) February 3, 2022
yes these are 3 separate "Kong" projects all promoted within the past 2 weeks, none with #ad as required by the FTC pic.twitter.com/H6i4A5Ibhr
He went on to claim that the projects promoting through @NFT were buying fake followers "in search of legitimacy" and paying influencers to make it seem like they're naturally interested in the collections.
Some projects were also accused of embellishing the CVs of the artists who had designed the tokens — inaccurately claiming they had previously worked for Hollywood studios and major brands.
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'The Slimiest NFT Shill of Them All'
Things get murkier considering that screenshots shared by @topshotfund suggest that @NFT was charging a minimum of $100,000 to projects that were interested in being promoted.
And although the high-profile page claimed that it performed an "internal review" to protect followers from questionable projects, 25 of the 36 promotions analyzed by @topshotfund were at or below their mint price — and four of them were "blatant rugs."
Wrapping up the post — which has since between retweeted more than 1,400 times — @topshotfund wrote:
"Conclusion: Mark Cuban is the slimiest NFT shill of them all — and for god's sake do your own research ppl."
This isn't the first time that @NFT has gotten into trouble over its social media tactics — and its handle on Twitter was also suspended back in January. Meta, which owns Instagram, told Rolling Stone:
"This account was disabled following repeated violations of our policies, and it won’t be reinstated."
Mark Cuban went on to tell the publication that he was "not involved with operations" for @NFT, but one of his business associates said:
"We apologize for any misunderstandings and we will add additional layers of transparency in what we present to our community moving forward."
The embarrassing closure comes as the public narrative surrounding NFTs shifts substantially, with the industry facing condemnation for its environmental and social cost — and the fact that some high-profile influencers trivialize investing life-changing sums of money.
Several big businesses have been forced to perform U-turns over plans to launch their own NFT collections, including Team17.
