Yuga Labs is facing anger from users for keeping a KYC-restricted project under wraps.
Other ideas for a blockchain game slated to arrive in Q2 2022 have been disclosed since Yuga Labs teamed with Animoca companies.
On Thursday, Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, or BAYC, teased a new cooperation with Animoca Brands, a blockchain game publisher. The catch is that no information about the initiative has been released, and customers who signed up for it through a Know Your Customer (KYC) authentication process have expressed their reservations on social media.
BAYC just tweeted a link to a webpage where interested fans can submit an application in the hopes of being accepted to take part in whatever “is brewing.” Users must connect to an Ethereum wallet, supply a photo of their driver’s licence, passport, or other ID, as well as evidence of their home address, and shoot a headshot using the device’s camera.
Both BAYC and Animoca Brands emphasised on Twitter that they are not referring to the Bored Ape NFTs play-to-earn game that they announced in December. According to BAYC, the only further information available is that “this has been building over the last seven months.” “The first phase” will be revealed, according to Animoca Brands.
Members of the cryptocurrency community are leery about agreeing to KYC standards without knowing exactly what they’re signing up for. One user with the handle @cr0ssETH posted, “Devs, if the IRS has taken you hostage, please blink twice,” implying that any sensitive information may wind up in the hands of third parties.
Another user, @maz nf, cautioned that crypto will soon become a “government regulated corporateverse,” recognising the inevitability of an NFT community adhering to regulation and laws in order to genuinely go mainstream.
These points of view spawned a debate regarding whether or not NFTs should be regulated and whether or not KYC should be implemented into NFT markets. Recently, OpenSea has been the target of phishing campaigns and breaches, leaving NFT owners extremely exposed. An art gallery owner’s $2.2 million Bored Apes collection was taken from his heated wallet in December 2021.
