G2 Esports has filed a lawsuit against Bondly, a blockchain company, in the LA County Superior Courts (per The Washington Post). The esports organisation had entered into a two-year agreement with Bondly in June 2021, as part of which Bondly was supposed to create and sell official G2 NFTs. Another part of it was paying G2 Esports an annual rights fee of $2 million on top of an advance of $1.25 million, money that Bondly was supposed to make back through NFT sales.
Well, in news that will surprise no followers of NFT drama, the money did not materialise. G2 Esports’ lawsuit says that after the first invoice was sent, a Bondly representative said the company could not in fact “successfully deliver a NFT program.” Bondly allegedly wanted to put the agreement on hold, but this was following the public announcement of the deal and G2 rejected that: after which Bondly sought to terminate the agreement, rather brazenly blaming G2 for being unwilling to work towards a solution.
G2’s suit alleges that Bondly knew it could never deliver when it signed the contract, which is a serious no-no. “Bondly and its agents knew that their representations were false when they made them, or made the representations recklessly and without regard to their truth. They knew they could not perform, but cunningly waited until G2 had publicly announced its partnership with Bondly to its millions of fans to reap the benefits of publicity through the highly valuable G2 brand.”
G2 is seeking damages of $5.25 million.
All links to the Bondly NFT project are now dead, though social posts such as the one below remain.
TO THE MOON 🚀We welcome Bondly as our NFT partner.First NFT – 30.06: https://t.co/c45Dfz8jEI pic.twitter.com/HgfRSZirvLJune 3, 2021
Bondly’s website describes the company as being “at the forefront of NFT technologies that bring creators and fans closer […] We execute every step of the process to bring authenticated digital-first goods to the market in music, entertainment, gaming and collectibles with a suite of products and services designed to support the entire blockchain ecosystem.”
That is, it makes NFTs for folk with some degree of celebrity who can’t be bothered to get involved but want a payday. It did a Logan Paul project, for example.
Oh well, there’s one born every minute I suppose. Don’t take this as some sign of great virtue on G2 Esports’ part either: the organisation is now partnering with another NFT company, Solana. It is not alone: great names like Ninjas in Pyjamas have joined the gold rush, along with the usual suspects like FaZe Clan.