Pixelmon’s Twitter account burst back into life on Friday morning.
Although there had been continued discussion on private Discord groups, it had been radio silence from the project on the public platform, which raised $104 million after a disastrous non-fungible token (NFT) art reveal earlier this year.
Angry purchasers told 1News they lost thousands of dollars when the art was revealed – which was nothing like the concept revealed earlier.
READ MORE: Cons, tech fails and market swings cast shadow over NFT future
“It literally looked like something from Microsoft Paint … it was so comically bad that anyone in their right mind would look at that and say that you can’t release that,” one investor said.
“He delivered nothing like the promises he made to us. I lost a s**tload of money,” they added, having paid US$9000 for the Pixelmon NFTs.
Pixelmon founder and Hamilton man Martin Van Blerk spoke to 1News exclusively about what happened and the plans that were put in place to establish a proper business structure.
“I’ve taken steps not only to realise that, okay, maybe I was out of my depth but to say, ‘how can I do the best going forward and what steps can I take to bring in people that have experience’,” van Blerk said.
An earlier NFT released by Pixelmon. (Source: Supplied)
But early Friday morning, a large public meeting with hundreds of participants was held on Twitter spaces to discuss the scandal, and what the plan was, going forward.
New concept art was also published.
It was largely led by Twitter user AlphaW, who told listeners he was now involved in the project. His Twitter account said he was an investor in Pixelmon.
Tweets from AlphaW claimed he was an associate of the new chief executive of Pixelmon, who 1News has met and discussed the project with.
He quickly blamed fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), for affecting the reputation of NFTs.
“The primary reason is that they Google news and they see something negative around NFTs … and they instantly associate the negative news to [all NFT] projects.
“At the moment there is a lot of FUD in the industry and externally – especially in the mainstream media’s perception of NFTs as a whole.
“Pixelmon has also been picked up in the mainstream media and we want to ensure that when mainstream media talks about Pixelmon they talk about it in a positive light.
“What we always find is as we build up new industries, the moment there is FUD … it becomes a bit difficult to bring in more people into our space.”
He described himself as a believer in this space.
New Pixelmon art. (Source: Supplied)
“We saw Pixelmon as an opportunity to change the perception the mainstream media has of NFTs.
“It came to the very simplest conclusion – if you care about the NFT industry, then we will do everything we can not to FUD the industry, but to ensure that every time someone … searches us, it’s something positive.”
He said the project attracted two types of people – those who wanted to flip their Pixelmon NFTs for money, and those wanting to be part of a community.
“There has been lots of talk about what has happened in the past few months, and we just wanted to say the moment we started speaking to [Martin], we also started the redevelopment process of the art … every week we are updating with new art.
“We are going above and beyond because that is what the community deserves at this point in time.”
Tatsumaki. The Air Dragon. pic.twitter.com/eq44DzvzLM
They went through a “very lengthy process” of hiring designers, he said, and the new chief executive would be named by the end of June.
Twitter user Xeppy, who said on his profile he was an NFT advisor, consultant, and analyst, spoke in support of the project.
“There are still people hopeful this will become something – it has raised some of the most amount of money in this space.
“The money is still there and Pixelmon can be built.”
A new roadmap for the project would be revealed soon, and more team members would be announced.
NFT analyst OKhotshot, who has spoken extensively to 1News about the Pixelmon scandal, was also part of the meeting.
“AlphaW hosting the Pixelmon space saying he’s concerned about the bad image NFTs have to outsiders, failing to realise that Pixelmon has done the biggest damage to the image of NFTs,” he tweeted after the meeting.
© TVNZ 2022
