Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox is facing some hefty allegations and hundreds of angry investors after pulling the plug on an NFT scheme that raised over $1.5 million since launching in December of 2021. It’s being called a ‘rug pull’ by investors, ostensibly saying Fox schemed to defraud them of their money and never deliver on the promises he laid out when the ‘swipathefox’ NFT project launched.
News began to spread that something was happening with swipathefox on Wednesday when investors noticed all communication had gone dark. The official website is now offline, a Twitter account related to its development was deleted, the community Discord was shut down, and Fox closed replies on his personal Twitter account. It became clear to investors that the project was vanishing, leaving them holding the bag on their investments.
The term ‘rug pull’ is parlance in the crypto space for a project launching, garnering investment, and subsequently being shut down without delivering on its promises. This has happened numerous times before, but rarely if ever with a famous backer like Fox as its head. The original swipathefox project promised giveaways, exclusive chats, gaming opportunities and more — all available to those who purchased one of Fox’s NFTs. However, now two months after its launch, none of those were made available.
Fox responded to the allegations on Thursday, vaguely outlining that the project was causing him a problem — and making…
