Someone Has Been Airdropping ‘COVID-19’ NFTs To Almost 100,000 People Uninvited
Photo 178196291 © Potatos | Dreamstime.com
Transmitted in the air, or rather airdropped, non-fungible tokens inspired by COVID-19 have been spreading into digital wallets unsolicited, mirroring the respiratory disease.
The superspreader behind this baffling but on-the-nose project is a self-proclaimed “NFT supervillain” who goes by the name of Bayneko. Aside from the SARS-CoV-2 NFT, Bayneko also developed 10 variants and sent them along to nearly 100,000 at-risk wallet holders in what they billed as “the largest JPEG drop in the history of blockchains.”
The NFTs were transmitted via the airdrop tool on blockchain platform Tezos. The feature works similarly with Apple’s Airdrop tool, except that Tezos recipients can be sent assets from afar and cannot reject them, Slate reports. In the same vein, you can’t choose to not get the coronavirus.
Two days ago, I infected tezos wallets with an NFT entitled SARS-COV-2. The token was minted using the standard Objkt contract. The criteria for inclusion was to own at least one NFT on HEN. Your response to this social experiment has been provocative. (1/6) pic.twitter.com/qHO6qzvHSm
— Bayneko (@bayneko1) February 3, 2022
“This work mimics an infectious disease in its invasiveness and universal spread,” Bayneko explains.
Once they reach their first carriers, the NFTs can be passed around to “infect” other wallets.
“The blockchain is more resilient than the human body and allows recipients to cure themselves by burning the disease or infect others by transferring the token,” the creator details.
Since there’s no vaccine, Bayneko even urged collectors to obtain all variant tokens to “increase your viral load.” Those who caught everything were presented with an exclusive FEVERDREAM NFT.
“I am a bit surprised there weren’t more people angry that I symbolically gave them COVID,” the creator tells SuperRare.
What are these? Any1 else get 1? pic.twitter.com/zerytS3O4W
— nftcasino.tez (@Cryptol33t_NFT) February 4, 2022
