LooksRare Team Cashes Out $30M in WETH, Faces Community Backlash

LooksRare has cashed out US$30 million in wrapped Ethereum (WETH), sparking outrage from its community. The price of its native token LOOK tumbled by 15 percent after news of the cash-out was made public.

Update: The @LooksRareNFT team has already cashed out 23116 WETH ($73,000,000). This doesn't include the value of $LOOKS.

Most of it is going straight to Tornado Cash. https://t.co/KjBeuqDCwS pic.twitter.com/zf9YKYb60v

— defi guy 🔥🦅 (@0xShitTrader) February 7, 2022

LOOKs Can Get You So Far

LooksRare, the newest NFT marketplace that only launched in January, and which touts itself to be the OpenSea killer, has become the talk of the crypto town. This is particularly so after the team behind the project cashed out million in WETH.

LooksRare has confirmed that its core team cashed out around 10,500 WETH from the unattributed staked LOOKs. According to the company, the native token was used for paying fees on the platform but was also awarded to users when they sold NFTs on the LooksRare platform. The unattributed native tokens were cashed for ETH on the popular coin mixing protocol Tornado Cash.

Twitter Backlash as Token Tumbles

Following the news going public, the team at LooksRare suffered severe backlash from the community on Twitter and the price of LOOK tumbled almost 15 percent in the aftermath.

One of the team members took to Twitter to defend the withdrawal and claimed that the team earning rewards in WETH was never kept secret from the community. The platform has also previously been involved in a report that suggests the majority of LooksRare NFT transactions may be ‘wash trading’.

One of the team’s core members, Zodd, added that the LooksRare team had been working on the platform for more than six months without any monetary compensation. He also said that the team fronted the seven-figure cost before launch.

Zodd also responded to a tweet that claimed nearly US$73 million had been cashed out, by providing the correct figure. Team members dismissed speculation regarding a probable rug pull and added that the platform was going nowhere and had big plans for the future.

(1/6)
To address this:

First off, the amount is incorrect: it’s closer to 10,500 ETH and we have 10+ full-time team members.

You can verify the amount on the blockchain by checking ETH transfers sent out on the analytics tab from the team address.https://t.co/Z4Qkv5T02a

— Zodd (@ZoddLooksRare) February 14, 2022

Although the team member did provide clarification on the matter, the LooksRare community seemed unimpressed and suggested the team buy back the LOOKs instead of cashing out in WETH.

One user wrote in response to Zodd’s tweet:

Love that you address this like "we haven't been paid for 6 months". So each team member just cashed out over 3 million USD (for 6 months work) leaving the public bag holders broke with a shitty chart like this? Joke…. community driven lol. Another crypto sad joke tbh. pic.twitter.com/7y93PkHRpW

— Aussie Mike (@cryptoaussie007) February 14, 2022