A controversial Twitch NFT site has shut itself down.
MyClips.tv became embroiled in an enormous controversy on Tuesday after an awkward interview between the owner of the site and streamer Matthew “Mizkif” Rinaudo. The owner of the site admitted to several glaring issues as well as some questionable business practices. While many are possibly too quick to label NFTs as a scam under any circumstances, the owner of MyClips did himself no favors while discussing the site.
“I just wanted to generate some publicity so you technically made all the money… I made a dumb mistake to buy a clip from myself for publicity,” the MyClips owner said.
When pressed on the matter, he also acknowledged that he hadn’t actually coordinated with any streamers in regards to selling digital rights to their content. Alongside this is the fact that buying an NFT of the clip still doesn’t really transfer ownership of the content, with the streamer and Twitch still ultimately having all relevant claims to the content.
This effectively means that people who purchase Twitch clip NFTs aren’t actually getting anything for their money. Though the owner stated that the core concept MyClips was to effectively serve as an alternative to donating, the site was effectively selling things it had no claim on.
The biggest issue was that the MyClips owner acknowledged that all clips purchased through the site were actually purchased by him and later admitted that clips were sold to others due to bugs. MyClips has been advertising clip purchases on its Twitter page, pushing the notion that these clips were regularly selling for hundreds of dollars in many cases.
The owner of MyClips effectively admitted to artificially inflating the prices of these clips, something that is unethical and potentially illegal.
NFT, cryptocurrency scams continue to endure around gaming
There have been a number of shady dealings around both cryptocurrency and NFTs in recent years, but gaming in particular has become a hotbed for them. Esports organizations and streamers have been accused of a variety of misdeeds for partnerships and collaborations, many of which are questionable on their face.
The FaZe Clan organization in particular has been at the center of several serious controversies. This includes part-owner Richard Bengston who worked with Bank Social on a giveaway in what appeared to be a pump and dump scheme. More recently, four members of the organization promoted a “Save the Kids” token that plummeted in value shortly thereafter. Three members of the organization were suspended while one was released, with FaZe claiming it had no official dealings with Save the Kids.
Alongside this, top Dota 2 organization OG was accused of artificially inflating the price of NFTs it sold earlier this year. OG has sold a number of NFT drops with a blind bag-style rarity system. The team was accused of either lying about the NFTs’ popularity or buying many of them itself in hopes of artificially boosting their price.
