De’Aaron Fox shuts down its SwipaTheFox NFT business. Image: Getty Images
Sacramento Kings guard D’Aaron Fox has been pocketing in and out of the basketball court lately. After announcing its NFT program “SwipaTheFox” in December and launching it in January, it took less than two months for Fox to close the program with more than $1.5 million paid out to its nearly 100,000 investors.
On Wednesday, after all communication was cut off, investors began to notice that something went wrong with the program. Later that day, without updates from Fox or any other major parties associated with the project, the program’s website went offline, the project’s Twitter account was removed, its Discord was closed, and Fox took to its personal Twitter. Answer disabled. All that evidence allows Fox to make a quick buck by promising NFTs, game tickets, signed jerseys, chat rooms with the King’s star, and even a scholarship to a University of Kentucky student (Fox’s alma mater). Points out, then counters the money without delivering on any of his promises. However, the King’s Star claims that this is not the case.
“The project launch was poorly timed,” Fox said. “I handed over some of the aspects to the launch of NFT in an effort to partner with the pros. We were not pleased with the execution and demand for our time and attention during the NBA season. This project is about a brand that will lead the way. Will continue to grow too but I have an obligation to cater to the Sacramento Kings and their loyal fanbase. They deserve all my attention. As I said earlier, I want to do it the right way again and for my NFT holders Look forward to adding value. I’m excited to learn from the entire NFT community as well. The project will be updated upon the conclusion of the NBA season.”
This is all well and good. If this is indeed the case, then yes, people will be upset that their return on investment will be delayed, but hopefully they understand Fox’s intentions and are willing to wait until the end of the NBA regular season: April 10. However, this still doesn’t explain why everything about Swipa the Fox was completely shut down. Why not tell your investors that this was your plan and the site was about to go down? Why not keep Discord so that investors can keep in touch with each other while at least waiting for updates? Fox doesn’t have to be overly active on stage. All he has to do is tell people about his intentions and keep quiet until the end of the season. Looking at what other popular NFT projects have done in the past, deleting everything creates panic.
Recently, a verified NFT collection called Doodled Dragons pledged to donate all funds from their project to help animals facing extinction. He even tweeted that he will donate $30,000 to the World Wildlife Foundation. Looks very noble, doesn’t it? Well, two minutes after that tweet, they announced that instead of donating the money, they were going to keep all the money: “Really. Go to hell. In return, now we will donate… my bank account. See you nerds.” Investors were stunned, but there wasn’t much they could do about it. Since it was an NFT collection, the money invested was not protected under the law in the same way as commercial investments. People don’t want to experience a similar outcome with Fox’s project.
Many Fox investors believed the project was worthless due to Fox’s high-profile status, believing that someone with a $163 million contract would not dare to take money from people poorer than him.
One of Fox’s investors, known as Honeybuzz, was quoted as saying, “I know there is some degree of risk involved in any NFT project. I try to minimize that risk as much as possible.” And I think usually you look for projects with public founders. And so I felt like [Fox’s] It was pretty safe.”
Other investors are calling Fox a liar and a thief. Loaded Lion, investor at SwipaTheFox, said, “I have never seen anyone do such disgusting things. Lying about giving scholarships, diverting all funds, taking money from people who are much poorer than him. It’s really low.”
Still, some investors think Fox had good intentions, but his inexperience in the crypto market has led to many setbacks. “I really think he had good intentions to make whatever he wanted. But then I also think he was super inexperienced and completely underestimated the amount of work that really took a toll on him.” “And then, in a privileged way, he decided to just walk away because he could and it really wasn’t going to affect him.”
What Fox did is like Tesla promised an electric car and allowed people to submit, but when people started investing, Elon Musk destroyed all evidence of Tesla, but claimed that they have a plan. Like, don’t you think it would be a good idea to let the people who gave you money in the scheme so they don’t start pointing fingers and shouting fraud? “But why would Musk do something like this? He’s a billionaire!” Why did Fox steal $1.5 million while her contract has earned her over $32 million a year? It doesn’t make sense, but that’s what will inevitably happen if Fox doesn’t restart the project.
