The corporate behind the cryptocurrency artwork craze Bored Ape is wanting into reviews of individuals struggling eye burns, extreme ache and poor imaginative and prescient after attending one in every of its occasions, which had been lit with UV lights.
ApeFest is held yearly for members of the Bored Ape Yacht Membership, often known as Bored Apes, who’ve invested in a set of 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that includes computer-generated profile photographs of cartoon apes.
Greater than a dozen individuals who attended ApeFest in Hong Kong final weekend took to social media afterward to complain that they had been experiencing eye ache and imaginative and prescient issues.
“I awakened in the midst of the evening after Apefest with a lot ache in my eye that I needed to go to the hospital…the physician informed me it was as a consequence of UV rays from the stage lights,” one attendee wrote on X, previously Twitter, beneath the identify CryptoJune. Festivals typically however I’ve by no means skilled that earlier than.
Her colleague Chloe Gee informed the Monetary Instances that the stage lights had been “very robust” and that, by 3am after the gig, she started to really feel as if her eyes had been “burning with chilli”.
The newspaper reported that she remains to be experiencing some discomfort, though the ache has now subsided.
Adrian Zducek described waking up with a “extreme burning eye” and going to the hospital, the place he was recognized Photokeratitis (Snow blindness) in each eyes. This situation outcomes from unprotected publicity of the cornea and conjunctiva to ultraviolet radiation.
He was prescribed steroid eye drops and eye lubricants, and stated his eyesight was “close to excellent” with no critical corneal harm, “happily.”
Posting on
“Based mostly on our estimates, we imagine that effectively beneath 1% of those that attended and labored on the occasion had these signs. Whereas virtually everybody reported that their signs improved, we encourage anybody who experiences them to hunt medical care if this happens.”
It’s believed that round 2,250 individuals attended the occasion. A video posted on X exhibits a Crowd of people dancing under UV lights.
Bored Ape NFTs, a type of cryptoasset used to certify the possession and authenticity of a digital file, rose to prominence in the course of the pandemic after a number of celebrities invested in them. Nonetheless, a latest report has discovered simply that The vast majority of NFTs are now worthless These gross sales have collapsed by 98% since their peak in Could 2022.