NFT partygoers blame Bored Ape Yacht Club event for loss of vision

With the collapse of cryptocurrency in the mainstream last year, some might be surprised to find out that NFTs are still a thing. Yet, people are still buying receipts minted to the blockchain that point to a piece of digital art, and one of the most popular NFTs continues to be the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Now, the entire NFT market — including Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs — is worth a lot less than it used to be. But they do still grant holders of the NFTs access to exclusive parties and club events.

Bored Apes are once again back in the spotlight, and not because NFT prices are spiking again. It's because one of those aforementioned Bored Ape parties has resulted in multiple attendees complaining of eye pain and vision loss.

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"Anyone else’s eyes burning from last night? Woke up at 3 am with extreme pain and ended up in the ER," posted @Feld4014 on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday after attending the three-day ApeFest event in Hong Kong.

The post received quite a few responses from other ApeFest attendees.

"I promise, it was really bad, so I had to go to the hospital," replied one ApeFest goer. "After they cleaned my eyes and gave me medicine, I'm feeling a little better now."

"I got it as well. Went to bed at 1:30, woke up at 5 eyes burning," said another X user who shared that they also went to the hospital due to the issue.

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According to tech founder Adrian Zduńczyk, who attended the party and went to the hospital after experiencing vision loss, doctors diagnosed him with “photokeratitis over both eyes."

"Doctor told me it was due to the UV from stage lights. I go to festivals often but have never experienced this," shared @CryptoJune777, another attendee of the event.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club's parent company, Yuga Labs, put out a statement regarding the reports.

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Apes, we are aware of the eye-related issues that affected some of the attendees of ApeFest and have been proactively reaching out to individuals since yesterday to try and find the potential root causes. Based on our estimates, we believe that much less than 1% of those attending and working the event had these symptoms. 

While nearly everyone has indicated their symptoms have improved, we encourage anybody who feels them to seek medical attention just in case.

Thankfully, it does seem that those who have shared their experience are on the mend.

In the NFT and cryptocurrency communities, fans of Bitcoin often like to show their support by portraying themselves with lasers shooting out of their eyes. 

But after ApeFest, we might have to reconsider those depictions. As cryptocurrency researcher Moly White put it, maybe the lasers were going in the opposite direction the whole time.

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