The great German Twitch streamer Marcel “MontanaBlack” Eris has been promoting various NFTs on his Twitter profile for some time now. However, he now has to endure a lot of criticism for a particular promotion, as these specific NFTs he advertised are now considered highly controversial. There is even talk of a scam case. MeinMMO reports what happened.
MontanaBlack has been interested in NFTs for a while and has frequently promoted them on his Twitter profile. He also hosted giveaways for NFTs, which were sponsored by the companies behind the respective NFTs, as MontanaBlack revealed.
NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are limited, digital objects that can be sold, collected, and traded. NFTs are based on blockchain technology and are currently popular speculation objects, similar to stocks or cryptocurrencies.
Some buy NFTs with the intention of reselling them later for more money. However, NFTs are currently under criticism, especially in gaming. Players are afraid that these speculative objects will enter their games and turn the hobby into a kind of work that also attracts investors wanting to make money in the game.
Which NFTs are specifically involved? The streamer promoted the NFTs from “Squiggles” and may have stepped into a huge minefield. Allegedly, these NFTs are said to be a scam (via Twitter).
One of the largest German Twitch streamers promoted a possible scam
Why are the NFTs said to be a scam? A report claims that the team behind “Squiggles” has already pulled off multiple scams. The team is said to have drawn $10 million from the pockets of investors.
Accordingly, they are said to be using bots to generate reach, leveraging exciting topics to hype individuals genuinely interested in their projects, and then abandoning their NFT project to disappear with the money (via watcher.guru).
There is talk of so-called “rug pulls”: “pulling the rug out.” This refers to a situation where an investment faces a sudden, catastrophic price drop that severely decreases the value of the object. A “rug pull” is when there is malicious maneuvering behind the price drop.
Squiggles was even banned from the largest marketplace for NFT projects (OpenSea) following these allegations. Whether there is any truth to the accusations has not yet been confirmed. However, Squiggles claims to be innocent (via Twitter) and is working to get reinstated on OpenSea (via Twitter).
MontanaBlack will refrain from NFT giveaways for now
This is what MontanaBlack says: He made a statement via voice message on Twitter, which he later deleted. A little later, he posted another statement:
He cannot really determine whether Squiggles are a scam or not. He will now refrain from NFT giveaways for the time being. Nevertheless, MontanaBlack believes that his interest in NFTs will not diminish. He will continue to “like posts or something.”
Twitter absolutely did not celebrate the action, and MontanaBlack managed to trend on Twitter for a while due to the faux pas. Here are some reactions to the streamer’s statement:
- Rafinesse: “Too bad, brother. You hurt the crypto and NFT community a lot. I’ve been passionately in the cryptogame since 2017 and in NFTs since 2021. The German community is already very difficult, but I hoped you could do something about it. Unfortunately, you’ve only hurt the whole thing more.”
- albion: “And in 2 weeks, the next scandal will come from you. Worse than all the trash YouTubers from back then, always just talk from you.”
- crusix: “Hypocrite. As if Tanzi and others hated because they say [NFT] is trash. And now this.”
Not the first fail from MontanaBlack regarding NFTs: Just in January, the streamer promoted NFT images featuring a monkey with a swastika. Although MontanaBlack apologized afterward, he faced harsher criticism after publishing ads for NFTs.
