Is Taiwan NFT running away from the community again? TMM founder Rick was accused of soft rug, and the loss of TON ecosystem users reached seven figures

Although the Bitcoin price has been constantly breaking new highs, even with the possibility of reaching the $100,000 mark in the near future, not every altcoin has been as successful, like the TON chain, which has been embroiled in legal turmoil due to the issues faced by its founder Parvel Durov. Recently, the NFT community TMM (TON Market Maker Club), which has been primarily developing in Taiwan and focusing on the TON chain, has been reported to have issued a "soft rug" (passive exit scam) by the issuing team.

The Taiwan NFT community may be heading towards decline due to misjudging the development of the TON chain

TMM, full name TON Market Maker Club, was founded by Taiwan KOL Rick Hsu. There are rumors in the community that Rick has a remarkable background, with the nickname "Spring Brother" (a term for wealthy second-generation entrepreneurs). According to the official Twitter description, TMM positions itself as a VC DAO and Alpha community, providing funding of $100,000 to $300,000 for new projects, and also offering early investment opportunities for NFT holders. Reviewing the ecosystem development of the TON chain, it is filled with low-on-chain content "play-to-earn" games. In the time since it gained popularity in late February, the basic ecosystem has not yet been successfully cultivated. Just like the previously reported TonUP exit scam incident, the development of these types of launchpads or alpha groups is indeed closely related to the ecosystem development. The community and KOLs who promoted TonUP in Taiwan at the time included TMM and its founder Rick.

The Genesis NFT is close to being halved, and the team has chosen to launch a new series

The first generation of TMM's NFT TON MARKET MAKER CLUB series only had 222 pieces released. The current highest transaction record is TMM CLUB #220, which sold for 876 TON, approximately $6,900 at the time. The total market value of the series is 28,000 TON, equivalent to only about $150,000. The initial generation of NFTs were minted at 222 TON, and the current floor price of the series has broken 120 TON, approaching a 50% decline. Due to the extremely limited quantity of the first generation, the user base is not large, so it did not generate much discussion. Many are concentrated in addresses with whitelist access, leading the community to suspect that it was mainly the official team driving the volume, with left hand washing right. The main discussion around the "soft rug" incident has focused on the second generation NFT TMFer. The TMM official also launched a free-to-mint NFT FREEDUROV on September 6th to pay tribute to TON founder Parvel Durov.

The second generation NFT is close to zero, following the same fate as TonUP?

The Mint prices of the second generation NFT TMFer were 22 and 33 TON, with a total supply of 2,222 pieces. According to data from the OKX Web3 NFT marketplace, the floor price of the second generation has dropped to 0.9 TON prior to the publication, a decline not far from the 99% drop of TonUP, truly a case of brothers in misfortune. If users had purchased TMM and also participated in TonUP, congratulations, your efforts this year can be considered wasted. Not only has the price performance been disappointing, but the passive attitude of the founder Rick has also ignited the community's fuse. Many people in the community hoped that Rick would at least come out and speak up, but they were met with endless silence. This Mint also coincided with the whitelist airdrop and Mint event launched by the OKX Web 3 wallet, but even with OKX's traffic, the 2,222 NFTs could not be sold out, and the team later announced that the remaining NFTs would be destroyed for liquidity. However, as TMM is the first TON NFT series to be listed on the OKX Web 3 platform, there are also voices in the community calling on OKX to respond, believing they should not list a "soft rug" project. Some holders have reached out to OKX and received the following response:

This holder is not an isolated case, as there are frequent reports of disaster on Twitter. Even chat logs of Rick arguing with the community have been leaked. Currently, the Chinese discussion group is in an uproar, and besides an overall gloomy atmosphere, the community's sentiment bot shows predominantly negative emotions and discussions around the project's "soft rug" incident. In hindsight, the holders who were mocked for "paper handing" their NFTs when they were first listed on OKX now seem to have been made into fools, just like the design of the second generation NFTs.

Aside from the development of TON itself not meeting expectations, the incident also involves the multi-level marketing behavior of many KOLs. This part is left for readers to search for keywords on their own. But the truly important thing is that as investors, we all need to cultivate our own judgment ability, regardless of what keywords the KOLs use to attract attention. Just as someone said that Rick has a strong background and has made public appearances, so the startups he participates in will not run away and will have many resources. But after a series of operations, these KOLs may gradually become silent, leaving users to face the consequences alone. This makes the author think of the previous TonUP incident, where the media revealed that the incident was related to the Taiwanese senior executive of a well-known TON venture capital fund. Perhaps because many Taiwanese media and practitioners hold a large number of TON tokens, they have set up many traps in Taiwan to seek cash-out. In fact, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has previously commented that TON is mostly low-net-worth users, and apart from attracting new users, they have not found a sustainable model.