Truth Labs Accused of "Rugging" Goblintown NFT Holders

Truth Labs, the company behind the popular Goblintown Ethereum NFT collection that gained traction amidst a decline in the NFT market last year, has been accused of "rugging" its holders this week.

The firm changed all of the project's 10,000 NFTs to animated GIFs featuring a middle finger accompanied by three more middle fingers. The altered NFTs now display this message:

This development occurs as Truth Labs continues to push for creator royalties enforcement, particularly after leading marketplaces Blur and OpenSea implemented a minimum 0.5% creator royalty fee for numerous projects. Creator royalties are fees applied to secondary market sales of NFTs, typically ranging between 5% to 10% of the sale price.

The satirical and mocking tone seems to reflect the company's perspective on the increasing trend of traders and marketplaces that no longer respect full creator royalty amounts when selling NFTs.

Trading Restrictions and Airdrop Promise

Besides the artwork alteration, Truth Labs announced on Thursday that it has disabled bidding, listing, or trading of Goblintown NFTs on OpenSea and Blur. The company plans to migrate its NFTs to a new smart contract that enforces creator royalty payments on-chain entirely. Smart contracts contain the code that powers decentralized autonomous apps (dapps) and NFT projects.

Truth Labs has promised to airdrop a new version of each impacted NFT—featuring the original artwork—to holders' wallets by the end of Sunday.

"Rugs" usually refer to projects that creators have abandoned or failed to fulfil promises. Although Truth Labs hasn't done this, the sudden change in artwork and trading restrictions has not been well-received by all NFT traders. The company has also made similar changes to its less prominent NFT collections, such as Truth Labs faces backlash over Goblintown NFT artwork change and trading restrictions amidst ongoing debate on creator royalties enforcement., The 187, and Grumpls.