I spent my severance on fake land
It's as bad as it sounds
It was 8pm on Thursday night and I was surfing twitter.
I saw this tweet from Jacob Martin (aka the “nftattorney”)
Alright let’s see how sideways this can go lol I’m a buyer of Yuga Land, Otherdeeds at mint price. If you have a KYC’d wallet and don’t intend to buy the 2 allotted lands… let’s chat. Also pls don’t be a random account with less than 100 followers and no on chain activity…
I sat up in my chair.
I remember verifying my wallet and KYC’ing for Yuga Labs a few months ago.
People were hesitant to KYC. KYC stands for “know your customer” and financial institutions use it to verify people’s identities. Big financial institutions are hated by crypto natives for things like KYC (in addition to fees, account holds, and customer service).
Anonymity and alternative identities are valued in crypto. It was strange to see one of the largest players in the space requiring KYC, so a lot of people didn’t do it.
Did my dumbass care? Hell no. I KYC’d without even thinking.
Back to last Thursday (4/29).
After seeing Jacob’s tweet I connected my wallet to the Otherside website.
I saw this.
I responded to Jacob saying “let’s chat”.
We dm’d back and forth. Once he knew I was a real human he offered me .5 eth ($1500) to mint two Otherdeeds for him.
What is an Otherdeed? (If you don’t know, watch this trailer. )
Otherdeeds are claims for land in the Otherside universe.
Otherside is Yuga Labs metaverse. Yuga created Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club. They also own the rights to Crypto Punks. They are the biggest name in the space (their market cap is larger than Carlyle Group, Roku, and Lyft!).
I thought about Jacob’s offer. I would make $1500 risk-free. But... if someone is willing to pay me $1500 for a $13,000 asset, there must be conviction.
Reminder: I just quit my job (see post here).
Don’t worry I have my severance 😆.
I didn’t want to lose ALL my money.
So, before I went to sleep, I made a list of degenerate friends.
I woke up on Friday and called the degenerate list to invest. The pitch?
The creator of the Bored Apes and owners of crypto punks, the two most successful nft projects of all time, are dropping a metaverse tomorrow
I am one of the few people allowed to mint it
Someone is offering to pay me $1500 to access this opportunity
We need $13k to make this happen
Most of the responses?
You want $13k to buy fake land?
3 friends decided to go in on it with me. They each zelle’d me their share and we were off to the Otherside.
Now, the hard part.
We needed 610 $ape ($13,000 in usd) to mint two Otherdeeds. $Ape coin is the cryptocurrency for Yuga Labs and the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem.
I went to Coinbase and bought $6700 $ape. I transferred the APE to my digital wallet and forgot one crucial detail.
Centralized exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and FTX have lockup periods after you purchase crypto. Coinbase makes customers wait 5 days before they can transfer more than $1000 of cryptocurrency. I could only transfer 50 $ape tokens to my wallet before the mint day (tomorrow). I needed to bypass the exchanges and get the remaining $12,000 of APE in my wallet.
I called my friend who had been in crypto longer than me. He was a premium Crypto.com customer, so he could buy the APE and send it to my wallet the same day. I Zelle’d (the daily limit) him $3500 and waited. I waited. I waited.
Nothing happened. His Crypto.com couldn’t send the APE to my address. Great.
I called another friend and told him what we were getting into. He said he had some eth in his wallet and spotted me 3 eth (about $8000!!).
I converted the 3 eth to 414 $ape. Now I had [414 $ape+ 50 $ape] = 464 $ape. I was still 145 $ape short of the goal. Things looked bleak.
The Crypto.com friend called me back. He said Crypto.com froze his money, but he could send me $3,000 to help. This covered the rest of the APE. I ended up with 617 APE (equivalent to $13,100).
I had the money and I was ready for war.
So I thought.
Part 2 soon.