Shamanzs NFT Unfair Dutch Auction

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Shamanzs

Shamanzs is a set of collectible NFT characters designed by a known team in Barcelona. The NFTs came to be listed on the widely used OpenSea marketplace, however the team changed the URL of the listing near the launch itself. A number of references pointed their community to the old link, and as a result many members were directed there. A scammer was then able to set up a fake listing at the old link, which directed members to buy different and non-official NFTs.

The Shamanzs team came up with a plan to provide refunds and discounted NFTs to those affected through a minting website. However, they only gave affected users 24 hours (plus 1 hour of advanced notice prior to the launch) in which to claim their refunds. While the process was reported to have proceeded smoothly, there was at least one user reporting issues claiming the refund. Since that time, the original tweets related to the refund process and the issue have been removed from Twitter, while Shamanzs account itself is still actively posting to promote new NFT collections.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

About Shamanzs

"Shamanzs NFT was designed by Barcelona-based award-winning design studio Brosmind, which is led by brothers Juan and Alejandro." "Shamanzs is an original collection of 9898 programmatically and randomly generated NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. Hundreds of traits have been drawn by hand, to create a vast array of high quality and unique loving characters." "Unique art, strong doxxed team, and values based on the GVO concept is what Shamanzs is all about." "The founding team share love for art, tech, music and the digital world. Frenzs forever, with common interests and ambitions, sharing a unique set of skills and connections, are finally joining forces to moon Shamanzs, turning it into a long lasting brand."

"The wisest Monkzs, Sadhuzs, Godzs and Guruzs on spiritual land, no matter which ancient religion they belong to, are secretly joining forces to create a powerful unified legion. Their goal is to spread love and good vibezs to erase bad energies from mother Earth for once. A new army of Shamanzs is secretly emerging, and the largest community of followerzs ever seen, is about to enlighten the whole metaverse with limitless positive energy." "Leaders from different tribes, beliefs, religions, backgrounds and natures are fusing in an evolved and upgraded version; self-proclaimed as SHAMANZS."

"Shamanzs plans on becoming the "Good Vibes Only" (GVO) brand as their directive line around the project. Holders of Shamanzs NFTs will be rewarded with exclusive access to future art that the artists and team will continue building. The utility will include airdrops, merch gifts, discounts to the online shop, and access to future IRL and digital events."

"Official OS link is no[w] live." "Fair Dutch Auction sold out under 3 min. Phase 2 (WL) starting at 10PM (EST). Peace & Love."

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - Shamanzs NFT Unfair Dutch Auction

Date	Event	Description
April 28th, 2022 8:12:23 AM MDT	TechMoneyCulture Article	A TechMoneyCulture article features Shamanz on the list of "3 Best NFT Drops to Kick Off May 2022".
May 3rd, 2022 5:20:00 PM MDT	OpenSea Link Live on Twitter	The Shamanzs team reports that the "[o]fficial] [OpenSea] link is no[w] live". (Tweet has since been deleted. TBD No way to confirm timezone. Known to be prior to 6:20 PM, and makes sense it would have to be prior to the sell out announcement.)
May 3rd, 2022 6:12:00 PM MDT	Sell Out Twitter Announcement	The Shamanzs team posts on Twitter to announce their "Fair Dutch Auction sold out [in] under 3 min[utes]" and that "Phase 2 (WL) [would be] starting at 10 PM (EST)". (Tweet has since been deleted.)
May 4th, 2022 3:11:21 AM MDT	Issue Reportedly Fixed	The Shamanzs team posts on Twitter that the issue was fixed quickly and another mint is open until 11 PM CET. (Tweet has since been deleted.)
May 4th, 2022 4:32:23 AM MDT	Mint Suspended And Refunds Offered	The Shamanzs team posts that the WL mint is suspended and proposed a refund to be done to all members who bought the fake NFTs.
May 6th, 2022 10:46:26 AM MDT	Smooth Refund Process	The refund process reportedly went smoothly.
May 7th, 2022 7:18:14 AM MDT	A New Shamanzs Era	"A new Shamanzs era has now officially started."
May 8th, 2022 2:40:27 PM MDT	Biggest NFT Space Comeback	Shamanzs announces "the biggest comeback in the NFT space". "As we speak, we aim for a relaunch on 17/18th May. As it is hard to give a specific day in advance it's an estimated date, however take for granted the Shamanzs Devs are working tirelessly to make you meet your Shamanzs as soon as possible."
May 11th, 2022 1:38:32 PM MDT	Shamanzs Twitter Announcement	Shamagang announces an airdrop and secret utility being developed for the ShamaPass, which combines the existing benefits with additional secret benefits. The current benefits for ShamaPass holders include airdrops of the genesis collection, access to exclusive raffles for music festivals, secret concerts, and NFT NYC tickets, and access to specific holder channels. In addition to these benefits, ShamaPass holders will receive a unique 2036 OG Collection designed by Brosmind, with each holder receiving one airdrop. The 2036 OG Collection will have its own lore and meaning, inspired by a powerful and unrevealed 1/1 item. Holding the ShamaPass grants the right to claim one NFT from the 9898 Shamanzs Genesis Collection and an airdrop of the 2036 OG Collection. The mechanics involve automatically keeping wallets after claiming the 9898 collection NFT and later airdropping the new ShamaPass to each wallet. The new ShamaPass will have the same benefits, except for the claimable NFT, and ShamaPasses with pending claims may have a limited trading period. ShamaPasses that already claimed the NFT will be burnt and trades won't be available. The new ShamaPass will be airdropped to saved wallets once the new contract is available.

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost is unknown.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Shamanzs Team Posts Summary On Twitter

The Shamanzs team posted a summary of the events and outcome.

Shamagang, you must be wondering what’s going on with the mint:

The collection was auto listed on Open Sea under shamanzs-v3. We quickly changed it to shamanzs-official, but a scammer parked a fake collection at shamanzs-v3.

The issue with the fake account was fixed quickly, but some people panicked and began selling thinking it was a fake collection.

The official Open Sea link is:

The team is working hard to figure out the next steps. We’ll let you know more soon. For now, know that the Shamanzs collection and project is solid, and our goal is to make it a long lasting one.

Unique art, strong doxxed team, and values based on the GVO concept is what Shamanzs is all about.

WL mint is open until 11pm CET. Official premint site:

Shamanzs Team Offers Refunds

Around an hour later, the Shamanzs team posted that they would be providing refunds to all affected users.

Hey @ShamaGang, sorry for the lack of communication recently, we were working on a solution to help all of you.

As always, we care a lot about our community and were devastated by the last FUD we got, we heard your feedbacks and we are taking serious actions on it :

We will be refunding .35 ETH to all those who minted at 0.5 ETH, make the mint price to .15 ETH, based on floor price, we don't want anyone to lose money.

We will be also refunding all those who bought from the fake collection, we took a snapshot of the wallets already(if you buy  now you won't be refunded)

WL mint is currently suspended, we will open it again, we will do a refund, that is claimable for all the WL members, of .044 ETH per nft, that makes the mint to .1 ETH.

"Hi ShamaGang, We would like to share with everyone some important information and evidence of what happened during/after the FDA sold out." "As you all know, we had our name changed on OS since it appeared to be misleading and that resulted into something unfortunate, where a scammer took advantage of this creating a false collection under the same name." "With the links not being updated, this led a small portion of our amazing community that we care about to the scammers OS ultimately resulting in them being taken advantage of."

"The collection was auto listed on Open Sea under shamanzs-v3. We quickly changed it to shamanzs-official, but a scammer parked a fake collection at shamanzs-v3." "The issue with the fake account was fixed quickly, but some people panicked and began selling thinking it was a fake collection."

"With that being said, we have a plan that's soon to be implemented." "The team is working hard to figure out the next steps. We’ll let you know more soon. For now, know that the Shamanzs collection and project is solid, and our goal is to make it a long lasting one."

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

"WL mint is currently suspended, we will open it again, we will do a refund, that is claimable for all the WL members, of .044 ETH per nft, that makes the mint to .1 ETH."

"We will be updating how we progress on our mission to compensate everyone that was affected post Fair Dutch Auction sold out on OS. The first step is to build a refund tool that will be available on our website, which is currently under development."

"We appreciate your patience, The dev team has been working hard, and a tool is currently being tested. We expect to have it available on our website really soon. To make things right, each wallet that minted during FDA will be able to claim a refund of 0.35 ETH per mint."

""Claim your refund tool" is now live for the next 24h." "If you minted during FDA, you can now claim your refund." "Click the green top right button of the screen, and connect the same wallet you used to mint with. [T]hanks for your patience."

"We will be refunding .35 ETH to all those who minted at 0.5 ETH, make the mint price to .15 ETH, based on floor price, we don't want anyone to lose money." "We will be also refunding all those who bought from the fake collection, we took a snapshot of the wallets already(if you buy now you won't be refunded)."

"The system will automatically refund based on total number of mints per wallet: 1 NFT minted = 0.35 ETH, 2 NFT minted = 0.70 ETH, 3 NFT minted = 1.05 ETH. Feel free to share, in case you now someone who minted on FDA." "After [24 hours], refunds won't be available."

"Very happy to hear that claim your refund experience is going smoothly. Now it’s time to build up, again. Get ready." "Shamanzs feeling stronger, united and unbeatable. Motivation level ath. Relaunch plan being built up (to be revealed soon). Community = army." "We're only looking up, and that means not even the moon is high enough fo the ShamaGang now!"

Total Amount Recovered

Shamansz reported that there was a smooth refund process on Twitter.

The total amount recovered is unknown.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

General Prevention Policies

Special care needs to be taken for launch links on projects. These need to be decided ahead of time and not changed. OpenSea should not allow a link to be reassigned quickly to another project.

It does not seem that users can be to blame here, since they accessed the link through an officially listed address. Were they to do any sort of research to the links, they would have missed the minting, as it sold out in 3 minutes.

Providing 24 hours for refund claiming is not likely to be sufficient, especially given the prevalence of phishing attacks in the NFT space. Users should be provided adequate time to become up to date and ensure the refund is legitimate.

Individual Prevention Policies

No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.