$500,000 NFT lawsuit over Pepe the Frog’s butt is a funny story

Late last year, Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie decided to hold an NFT auction and sell a picture of the controversial character, where she was waist-deep in a pool with her asshole peeking above the surface. Everything that has happened since is exactly how you would imagine such an auction to be in the bland Web3 space.

Anger-who tried in 2017 to “reclaim” the figure after it was co-opted as a symbol of the far right

– had formed a decentralized autonomous organization or DAO called PegzDAO and on October 8th auctioned a single NFT depicting the above image, while at the same time clearly stating that in addition to the one being auctioned would be 99 other NFTs depicting the same image that would be produced and kept in the DAO’s possession and never to sell.

as Web3 runs just great report, a man named Halston Thayer won the auction and spent the cryptocurrency equivalent of $537,084. He was no doubt excited about his unique purchase until a few weeks later PegzDAO released 46 of those other 99 NFTS – which you recall represent the exact same picture that Thayer paid half a million dollars for

-for free.

As first posted by the attorney Rob friendThaler has now decided to sue Furie and its affiliateswhich claims that the free release “significantly devalues[ed] Pepe NFT of the plaintiff to less than 30,000 US dollars”, which, considering that we are talking about a completely worthless image that you can all right click here and save for yourself, is one of the funniest sentences I’ve ever read. The suit starts with:

This action arises from Defendants’ unlawful, dishonest and fraudulent business practices, including their unfair, deceptive, untrue and misleading advertising and unlawful actions in relation to an auction for a specific non-fungible token (“NFT”), which Defendants and others led the NFT to greatly outbid. Plaintiff therefore brings this action for fraudulent incitement, willful and negligent misrepresentation, unfair competition and unlawful business acts and practices, breach of contract, breach of the implied representation of good faith, and unjust enrichment.

Thayer is Looking for to be reimbursed the full price of their original “investment” and “punitive damages”.