What a Jacked'up Situation for Jacked Ape Club

The creators of Jacked Ape Club have gotten themselves into a messy situation after making shady moves that have upset their community. Jacked Ape Club started as a collection of 8,888 swole ape NFTs. It was originally intended to merge the workout world with the world of NFTs. 

One of the first signs of trouble from this project was when influencers connected to the Jacked Ape Club shilled to their audience without disclosing their connection to the project. Twitter user and Jacked Ape Club skeptic, fauxcondor posted a conversation he had with influencer Morgan Taylor about her promotion of the Jacked Ape Club project. In the conversation, Morgan says she was not paid to shill the project, but it was later found out that she was a part of the team.

Another sign was the project’s whitelisting and sales. After the project’s announcement, the Jacked Ape Club Twitter account quickly reached 64k followers, but it failed to mint all of its 7,000 whitelist spots, only having 2,500 mint. Once the project went to public sale, it only managed to mint another 700 Jacked Apes, after which the Jacked Apes team announced the project sold out. Fauxcondor quickly pointed out that the project did not sell out; the team just burned the remaining 5700 supply to make this claim.

This week, the project came to a downfall after the co-founders, Dylan and Nick kicked Orangie, Mitchell, and Davis from the team. In a since-deleted announcement, Nick claimed the reason for kicking them was because their work was done, and they would not continue to work unless they got paid more. It was later discovered that this was not the case, and the Orangie, Mitchell, and Davis all were forced out against their will. 

Fauxcondor later discovered the remaining team drained all the sales funds and distributed the ETH amongst the people who worked on the project.

Soon after the draining, Mitchell tweeted out a response to the false allegation against him. In it, he said he, Orangie, and Davis were blocked and banned from all Jack Ape Club social media accounts. Mitchell also noted that the three of them approached the co-founders days before they were kicked from the project to reach an agreement to hand over the project to the three in order for the project to continue.

Along with this, he posted a recording of Nick allegedly telling Davis, “​​I don’t think I have what it takes to run Jacked Ape Club…I don’t think I can handle the pressure either. I’m too new to the business world.”

According to Davis, the co-founders agreed to transfer over the brand ownership to Mitchell, Orange, and Davis in this meeting. But a day after this, the three learned they were kicked from the project. 

All these events caused community backlash, which resulted in a response from Davis. In a Twitter thread, he said, “I am no longer a part of JAC, nor have I ever had ill intention or plans of rugging, the money was always going to go back into the project.” He also added that 105 ETH was returned to the project, 80 ETh going to the treasury fund and 25 ETH for salaries for a year.

In a Twitlonger, Davis announced that he would be taking over the project and would be focusing on building back the community. This is good news for the community as many people connected to the project have stated their support for the new leadership.