It’s been about three years since the massive NFT boom, and to this date, nothing comes close to the status of Cryptopunks and BAYC. Until a new kid in the neighborhood decided to catch the spotlight, studying the market and NFT culture for over a year until finally debuting as A KID called BEAST. Rumor has it, this is going to be the BAYC of 2023. Some are super psyched over this NFT project as we covered it here, but others are extremely skeptical to the point of circulating a KID Called BEAST rugpull accusations. Hashbastards on Twitter investigated the matter and claims that the founders minted their own supply.
How true is this rugpull controversy?
Are the founders hiding behind malicious intentions?
Will AKCB really become the next BAYC?
Let’s figure it out.
Rugpull Origin: Problems Minting A Kid Called Beast NFTs
How true is this KID Called BEAST rugpull scheme? Let’s take it to the beginning where their mint process had a lot of technical issues filled with hacks and loss of WL spots.
The root of the problem is that the collection has a 10k supply, but the founders allowed 24,000 allocations for WL. Already from the start, 14K people were going to lose their spots. Here’s how the mint experience went down on January 15, 2023:
- Some had to wait all night as it took 4-5 hours before slots opened
- They tried to mint 5-6 times and it didn’t work.
- For two hours AKCB official accounts had 0 social media communication and closed their discord.
- At that point, the majority felt like AKCB made an extra amount of money from the mint by letting more than 10K people mint, then realized they messed up and rugged it.
- Only 6,325 NFTs were minted on that day from 10 K. Almost 17.5K wallets were taken off whitelists.
- The rugpull controversy was born.
After a few hours had passed the official account tweeted assurance, but the damage was already done and skepticism prevailed.
We've Identified The Main problem.
The Hype Was To Real. We Have Had Over 18 Million Pull Request of Bot/Sniper Accounts Attempting To Mint The Project so far. This is what paused the ability to mint. Working on the solution. This isn’t easy and we’re going to get through this. pic.twitter.com/gNEQBk5wtx
— a KID called BEAST (@akidcalledbeast) January 16, 2023
Removing Wallets from Whitelists
The biggest reason for accusing a KID called Beast of rugpulling is because of the suspicious wipe of wallets. According to the founders, there was high demand and many bots trying to mint on that day, and this overcrowded the system. Therefore, in the founders’ defense, they were just trying to filter out bot users. However, the wallets were still loaded onto the AKCB smart contract. This implies that the wallets were almost all real people, so AKCB founders allegedly rugged over 17k followers for allowlist spots.
After that storm, on January 16, influencer Resaang tweeted a thread revealing that Rafsby was going to collaborate with her for WL spots. But that didn’t happen because he wanted to “cherry-pick” people from her community. She shared an Excel sheet revealing 24,000 wallets allocated for a KID called BEAST whitelist. This further solidifies that the founders intended to over-allocate whitelist spots.
Back in August, @Rafsby from @akidcalledbeast wanted to cherry pick from my communities at the time hence our collab didn't occur. To that he shared with me how ACKB was his baby and he was selective in WL distribution. Fast forward to today,
— Resaang (@resaang) January 15, 2023
Second Mint – Hack Infused
Despite A KID called BEAST being accused of a rugpull, they managed to assure their community. All the skepticism didn’t quite affect them. They pushed the continuation of the mint on January 20, but their Twitter account got HACKED as many of those who wanted to mint got scammed. This time around they were very quick to respond and contain the situation.
3/3
To anyone who was affected, please remain calm and do not be alarmed or panic. We will be verifying each wallet on chain, one by one and in the order of which the request was received. 🙏— a KID called BEAST (@akidcalledbeast) January 24, 2023
The mint was resumed on January 24 and to assure their community that it was safe to interact with, they shared the results of their AKCB site audit by CertiK. Furthermore, those who were allowed to mint were determined by raffles held in the community and hand-picked by the team – Allegedly, to keep it secure.
AKCB Minted Their Own Supply?
On March 24, Hashbastards put together an investigation over the whole KID Called BEAST Rugpull and problematic mint situation. The blockchain is a marvelous technology, where everything is documented and that’s how Hashbasards managed to pull information and connect the dots.
🤥THE FOUNDERS OF A KID CALLED BEAST
Rafsby and CryptoKrad.
They would have you believe the AKCB mint was 100% organic. That the team does not hold any.
But that's not true.
How did Rafsby secretly mint hundreds from his own project?
Let's explore 👇 pic.twitter.com/TTfbIqlEtI
— HashBastards NFTs 🤑 (@HashBastardsNFT) March 24, 2023
Long story short, all these alleged “hacks” and “mistakes” were an intentional scheme by AKCB founders. They did all of that to hide the fact that they were minting out their own supply. The Twitter community went wild in the comments, and many were amending Hashbastards for the legit investigation. Krad himself was replying to almost everyone and explaining that the thread has no merit and that the legitimacy of the mint can be proved if they check their Discord servers. He went on and on replying and proving that this is all nothing more than a FUD scheme.
Just gonna drop a few quick facts
1) VIP’s in the discord got a free mint, dozens did not make it in the 12 hour window and exceptions had been made.
2) disperse is NOTHING like tornado cash, or else we would not be able to have this conversation 😅😂 #DYOR
3) within the… pic.twitter.com/54Ruj1SiiL
— Krad | a KID called BEAST (@CryptoKrad) March 24, 2023
Hey man, I appreciate you as a human being.
But im gonna give you some real valid feedback, nothing you can say from this point is worth any value or even merit honesty. You didn’t do your research, you tried to get a quick kill.
Reality is, you failed.
If you don’t believe…
— Krad | a KID called BEAST (@CryptoKrad) March 24, 2023
A Kid Called Beast Floor Price Steady
- Drop Date: January 15, 2023
- Supply: 10,000
- Mint Price: 0.077 ETH (approximately $115 at that time)
- ATH FP: 2.1 ETH (
- OpenSea FP: 0.86 ETH (approximately $1,548 at the time of writing)
Whether there’s any truth to the KID called BEAST rugpull controversy or not, the community keeps supporting the project. We can clearly see that the AKCB floor price is steady and barely affected by skepticism. Immediately after the first mint, A KID called BEAST ranked #1 on OpenSea with an FP of 0.4 ETH (around $600 at that time). That’s 5 times more than the mint price. Also, after AKCB official account announced the Vault event of soft-staking, the FP hit its ATH at 2.1 ETH. So technically speaking, one month after mint, AKCB secured the highest sales and toughest community, with the highest to date being BEAST #8195 selling for 50 ETH!
What Makes AKCB Desirable?
One of the main reasons that KID called BEAST pulled itself up is giving back to the community. Rafsby compensated the victims of the hacks by giving out 350 beasts from the 1K reserve they planned to keep for raffles. “We’re giving back almost a million dollars worth of Beasts to a hack that was only worth around $52k.”
Heads up! We’ve started giving back Beasts to those who got drained in the Twitter attack. If there’s a real good chance to get a discounted Beast it will be over the next 7 days. Big news is planned after this is complete. You’re welcome! ❤️👀
— Rafsby | a KID called BEAST (@Rafsby) February 22, 2023
Apart from that there are three main pillars that make AKCB innovative and desirable:
1- Creative Art & Concept
- Everyone has an inner kid inside them and the mask represents childhood imagination.
- An altered personality that people can use in digital playgrounds.
- Inspired by undoxxed PFP culture
- Ski mask → create an anonymous character but still be as expressive as possible.
2- A Culture true to the nature of Web3
- 20 beast hoods → 500 people per community
- No overcrowded discords of people talking on top of each other, so you can genuinely make connections
- Find cliques you relate to
- 17,000 traits → inclusive and relatable with a personality quiz.
- Something you wanna hold on to from the mint.
- Founders engaged with the community
- Creating logo contests for beast hoods
- Giving away beast NFTs for holders who stake
3- Utility Focused
- 3D avatars that people customize
- Giving holders new skills → Utilization of blender application.
- Many options to do with the avatar you hold:
- 3D print stuff like toys or helmets.
- Integrate your avatar into any metaverse
- Create animation videos
I think the coolest part of @akidcalledbeast is that it's getting many of us to learn a new skill with @Blender
What other NFT project is doing this?
I love seeing everyone's art in my timeline and can't stop creating my own and leveling up my Blender skills pic.twitter.com/7RNsVq8IaD
— HUSTLE INC. (@RealHustleInc) February 21, 2023
Why Could AKCB Become the Next BAYC?
Whether A KID called BEAST rugpulled their followers at the beginning or not, it has the biggest potential for realizing the future of NFT utility. No one ever utilized 3D NFTs this way before, and giving IP rights to holders is one of the smartest ways to go. This way they keep the community engaged while having fun. The project won’t stop here as the AKCB team is:
- Creating their own mobile game that is fall-guy-inspired and family-friendly
- Working on a short film that has a PIXAR vibe to it.
A KID Called BEAST: Rugpull or Mishap?
Now that we laid out all the facts, we come back to the main question. Is the NFT project A KID called BEAST a rugpull? Technically speaking the definition of a rugpull requires the founder of a project to disappear with the investor’s funds. However, AKCB founders are more active than ever with their engagement so from that perspective, it doesn’t make sense to call the project a rugpull.
However, the whole removing people from WLs situation does not sit well with many. We are talking about more than 17k individuals who worked so hard for 9+ months in the AKCB community to secure those whitelist spots. To suddenly, overnight, find themselves removed, was a huge disappointment. The whole “filtering out bots thing” was also very unfair. Mainly because bots work in the same way any smart human would, by minting from a burner wallet to avoid any malicious wallet drain.
The Verdict on WL Situation
Even if it seems like A KID called BEAST is NOT a rugpull, in terms of minting their own supply, it definitely looks like that. They could have just used their own wallets instead of dispersing funds to multiple wallets and pretending to mint from WL spots. Even if they claimed to be helping out family and friends to mint without gas fees, why choose the most suspicious way? Why not straight out say from the beginning instead of ridding people who worked hard for those WLs?
A corner of the internet is pissed at Rafsby and CryptoKrad because “they were doing things wrong and still getting rewarded for it”. Claiming that he intentionally chose to overallocate WL spots to ensure a mint out of the project, then play the founder game of:
Mess up → Accept accountability → Get away with anything you do.
Whatever the case, A KID Called BEAST is bathing in the spotlight with a solid community backing it. Moreover, a lot of NFT enthusiasts, influencers, investors, and major collectors view the project as a blue chip in the making – even anticipate it to be “the BAYC of 2023”.
NFTs are indeed degenerate gambling and no one can expect what can happen. It makes you wonder though, WHY wasn’t the community more forgiving of Doodles, Moonbirds, and CloneX’s mistakes and instead left their blue-chip status almost fading?