How NBA Players Abused NFTs

A blockchain forensics expert by the name of ZachXBT attracted attention to a rugged NFT project on Twitter on June 8th. The PlayersOnlyNFT project was started by a group of NBA and MLB athletes who felt that they were not meeting the needs of their respective communities.

PlayersOnlyNFT is a new decentralized sports betting platform that was introduced to the public through the Dogecoin Launchpad. After starting with 10,000 tokens, the available quantity was eventually reduced to 4,456. Shortly after the team made the pledge, around $1.4 million was invested in the initiative. The team’s guarantee was that all NFT holders would win sporting products.

Noticeably, Dennis Smith Jr. and Michael Carter Willy were both excited about publicizing the PlayersOnlyNFT initiative just a short time before it was officially released. The idea claimed to provide value for the NFTs in the form of a utility, such as Zoom calls from NBA stars, signed jerseys, game tickets, fun trips, and many other opportunities. However, the project did not live up to the expectations that were set for it.

The NBA Players Don’t Come Through

Community members were abandoned shortly after the platform was made available to the public. NFT holders were not rewarded with their winning products, and sporting celebrities did not attend the special fan meets that were planned for them.

One holder of NFTs, in particular, said that he had won a founders jersey, but when it was delivered, he received a t-shirt with a bogus signature on it instead. A great number of people in the neighborhood expressed their disappointment in the fact that they had not received anything. The staff provided the community with a number of explanations on the Discord server as to the reasons the incentives were being held up, and gradually, moderators began to leave the service.

When Brooks Brown and Austin Grieshober revealed, during the first week of May, that they would be leaving PlayersOnlyNFT, members of the community experienced yet another source of disappointment. He did confirm, though, that Michael Carter Willy and a few other sportsmen will continue to be involved in the endeavor.

The team did not release an update until the 9th of June, much after the community had been stagnant for a considerable amount of time. Sadly, the announcement just served to dampen people’s expectations more. The group announced that it would be terminating its participation in the NFT community at the end of this week, citing the fact that they are unable to meet the requirements of all of its members.

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Because the community will soon be shut down, there is no longer any chance that fans will ever receive the benefits that they were promised from the project.