Original subtitles

This programme contains very strong language from the start.

PHONE LINE RINGS

ANSWER PHONE BEEPS

Hey, buddy. Um, well, what can I say?

HE CHUCKLES

Fucking insane! I'm in shock.

DARTH VADER RESPIRATOR RASPS

Everyone within the industry is fucking shocked as well.

They're just like, "This has never gone down so quick."

# I was five and he was six

# We rode on horses made of sticks... #

ANSWER PHONE BEEPS

You are a fucking millionaire!

How do you feel?

# He would always win the fight Bang, bang... #

DARTH VADER RESPIRATOR RASPS

# Bang, bang, my baby shot me down. #

It's 8.30 in the morning.

In West London, an art curator is waking up

to discover he has become a millionaire overnight...

..selling art that doesn't physically exist.

It's part of a revolution in art

that promises vast wealth for those in the know.

This project looked huge.

I could have got a Damien Hirst, one of one.

It was going to make me rich, you know?

I decided to pull the trigger and went all in.

Let's do this.

The whole collection sold out in five seconds.

One of the fastest-selling NFT drops ever.

If it's this popular, where could this go?

Just made two mil on NFT.

GUNSHOTS

But is this fast money nothing more than fool's gold?

It's snake oil.

There was no valuable thing to be able to sell.

People were busy pumping air into the balloon,

and eventually the balloon was going to pop.

Our story unfolds in a world where digital art meets cryptocurrency...

What is going on, all my crypto friends?

..and not everything is as it seems...

There was so much deception and fraud,

and it was across so many planes.

..with characters who use monikers and masks as a means of expression,

but also to hide.

CHEERING

This is a tale of ambition...

He insisted he was an artist,

but what he made seemed fairly unhinged.

He seems to be scared of absolutely nothing.

If you want anything done in life, you're going to piss people off.

..greed...

There was a gold rush, and people's motivations aren't always pure.

He saw the pot of gold at the end of the NFT rainbow,

and he took it with both hands.

We knew that people were going to get hurt, unfortunately.

..betrayal...

Artists' work was stolen.

It's a rip-off at a very fundamental level.

..and fortunes made and lost on a new digital frontier.

I lost a lot of money.

I think he's fallen into some kind of digital abyss

that he didn't really reckon with.

There's millions of pounds unaccounted for.

Someone must know where it is. Someone must have it.

If you're being completely honest, was this a scam?

Our story begins, not here in the art studios of London...

..but on the battlefields of Afghanistan...

..with a man called Bran.

I joined the Special Forces Reserves.

I was called up to go to Afghanistan.

And we came under fire from the Taliban...

GUNSHOT

And I dove for cover in a ditch with this kid next to me...

..and his AK-47 was covered in pink stickers.

And I just had that defining moment.

The voice in my head just said, "If I get back in one piece,

"this is something that I'd like to look into doing...

"..taking something of fear and loathing

"and turning it into beauty and intrigue."

That was my first entry into the art world,

and then it snowballed from there.

These customised AK-47s become Bran's hallmark.

But he thinks he could get more exposure for his concept

by engaging higher-profile artists.

In 2012, he invites the likes

of Antony Gormley and the Chapman brothers

to add their own take on the guns for a charity exhibition.

We auctioned off all the AK-47 art pieces.

That night, we raised £450,000 for charity.

And that was actually when I first met Ben.

Unbeknownst to either man...

..this meeting will start a chain of events

that, over the next ten years,

will lead to some people making millions

and others losing everything.

Ben. Where do you start?

I, personally, think he's a bit of a maverick.

And action.

Ben Moore is a curator

who has been part of the London art scene since the mid-noughties.

At this point, he's best known for putting artist's work

on the London Underground through his company, Art Below.

In 2008, Ben encounters the British designer

of an iconic piece of movie history...

Did you create the actual...?

Yeah. Um, you designed them as well? Yeah.

..the helmet of the Imperial stormtrooper from Star Wars.

Having acquired two stormtrooper outfits...

..Ben begins a new artistic journey.

I think Ben's talent is taking things that people know

and are very aware of,

but approaching it from a different perspective.

Ben stuck out

because he was always doing something out of the ordinary.

Stand further against the wall, Ben.

He does divide opinion.

CORK POPS

CHEERING

It can either be fifth grade idea, or it's art.

Nice!

Ah! Hot pink. Yeah.

Ben created this idea of a Pink Stormtrooper,

taking the Star Wars suit and painting it pink.

And we went around London taking photos.

CAMERA CLICKS

Hey!

INAUDIBLE

And that was his first experience with, you know,

the idea of using these suits in the form of art.

As well as a piece of performance art...

..the Pink Stormtrooper becomes Ben's alter ego.

CHEERING

Self-promotion is a trait of Ben's.

So if there's one thing worse than being talked about,

it's not being talked about.

CHEERING INTENSIFIES

So, good or bad, I think it, you know,

it led him into the things he ended up doing.

All right, I'm doing this.

My mate, Bran, likes to fuck around with AK-47s.

I happen to be the proud owner of one.

Also happen to be the Pink Stormtrooper.

This little motherfucker right here.

Beyond the street stunts,

there seems little mileage in the Pink Stormtrooper.

But Bran's AK-47 exhibition has given Ben an idea.

In 2013, he decides to set up his own charity show.

But in place of guns, he'll exhibit customised stormtrooper helmets.

He manages to secure the world-renowned Saatchi Gallery

and will call the show Art Wars.

Star Wars is something that is very mainstream,

you know, appeals to all ages.

Um, and the...the helmet, the object of the helmet, is

one of the most iconic - IS the most iconic - object in film history.

Ben emailed me to say he was organising an exhibition

of stormtrooper helmets for charity.

I remember thinking he was a bit of a live wire,

but it's the art world.

It attracts live wires.

He said he'd give us the physical helmet

to do whatever we fancied with it.

CAMERA CLICKS

And then he listed off some of

the artists he had involved already.

They were all household names.

I think if you're an artist and you command a certain amount of money

for your work, that primes you

for a certain sense of kind of internal guilt

about being an artist and making ridiculous amounts of money

for things which don't seem to kind of correlate.

So we agreed to do it just on the basis of it being a charity,

rather than anything that Ben Moore said

or any kind of curatorial sort of conversation.

CAMERA CLICKS

He gave us a blank

and said, you know, "Do what you want with it."

Ben is Ben.

Basically, he's a chancer, you know?

But then, in what he's trying to do, you have to be a bit of a chancer

because, you know, you have to make things happen,

and you have to sort of gee people into it.

CAMERA CLICKS

His show's charitable status helps Ben land some big-name artists.

Even Damien Hirst is on board,

supplying a helmet decorated with his trademark spot painting.

Ben seemed to, from the get go,

seemed to have the right connections - Damien Hirst,

Jake and Dino Chapman, etc, etc, are involved.

You're like, "Wow, this is fantastic. What a great line-up.

"I feel honoured to be part of that line-up.""

CAMERA CLICKS

Ben seemed like someone that was...

..honest, and in it for the right reasons.

He did a couple more shows in London.

I think he did an exhibition in America,

and he pulled in some big artists again.

We are live in Miami.

The Pink Stormtrooper is going to show us around Art Wars.

Ben Moore,

I mean, I've kind of met his type before,

a kind of posh boy chancer.

Would you like an ecstasy?

The Pink Stormtrooper has everything.

But we all contribute to...to good causes,

and if it's engaging, you've got an idea for it,

then you'll do it.

CAMERA CLICKS

I made a piece covered in ecstasy pills.

The piece sold for $5,000 to somebody in Bel-Air.

I was very happy for Ben.

It got a great response.

I remember Ben was interested in the fact

that I could photograph the finished art pieces as well...

CAMERA CLICKS

..to then make some prints from them,

and then possibly to sell the prints at a further date.

But I was always pushing him,

saying, "Look, you know, this could be something huge."

Over the next few years, Ben continues to run Art Wars shows.

But, eventually, the money they make...

..and his interest in curating them wanes.

But just as the helmets seemed destined to be forgotten...

..a new force awakens.

A revolution in art is under way,

one that exists entirely in the digital realm.

REPORTER: Encrypted digital art is today's investment craze.

NFTs might be tomorrow's burst bubble,

or the beginning of a new story in the history of art.

An NFT, or non-fungible token, is a kind of digital watermark...

..an identifier that can be attached to a work of art online

to make it unique.

Now it can be bought or sold like a work in the physical world.

It's an innovation that finds its moment in the Covid pandemic.

With the world locked down,

everyone and everything is forced online.

The conditions are perfect for an explosion...

..in this new digital art form.

A new craze that is redefining what it means to be a collector.

A digital artwork by a relatively unknown American artist,

known as Beeple, has sold at Christie's for nearly $70 million -

that's £50 million - and become the first ever sale

by a major auction house of a work that doesn't physically exist.

Suddenly, you had this mass of people spending lots of money

on these digital works.

It was completely crazy.

Suddenly the world had exploded

and there were thousands of people doing it. Tens of thousands.

Taking advantage of this NFT boom are a new generation of investors,

like the crypto-entrepreneur who calls himself Sillytuna.

People liken the NFT bubble to the tulip bubble

back in the 17th century,

where one tulip could be worth up to six times someone's salary.

You can look in hindsight and go, "This is crazy."

At the time, people didn't know when it would stop,

so they kept trading tulips.

This is what I call Bored Ape mania.

If you got in early, then you're sitting on

a quarter of a million to half a million-plus dollars.

NFTs are traded in cryptocurrency,

so their popularity is partly driven by the huge rise in values

of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

You could see that there's this booming market

and valuations are becoming crazy.

At the height of the bubble, I sold an NFT for $12 million.

2021 was a massive year for NFTs.

$13 billion was traded in NFTs in that year.

Some estimates valued the whole market at $40 billion.

It was huge.

Everybody was trying to work out whether they could make one

and make some money on it.

Now artists are discovering that digital creations

can be worth millions.

People like me who've been in the market for a long time,

we could see that there was a gold rush going on.

And that gold rush was not healthy, in a lot of cases.

People were going to get hurt, unfortunately.

In the autumn of 2021, with the market at an all-time high,

investors begin to hear about

a special new collection.

Its name is Art Wars.

And it's an opportunity that seems too good to miss.

I just want to say that I really appreciate

the warmth and positivity

that I've felt from the community over the last few weeks.

It's my first time in this space.

You're forever struggling, doing really good things,

and the pay-off is that, apparently, you have a good reputation...

..but...no money.

All right. I'm bored of that. I want some money.

It was sort of an opportunity

that I felt was, like, cooked up by the gods for me to...to...

..to finally...

..make serious money very quickly.

The first voice who convinced me of that was...was...was Bran.

In the ten years since they first met,

Ben and Bran have remained in touch.

We were always connected through collaborations.

At the time, NFTs were just going crazy

and everyone was bringing out anything and everything.

I instinctively thought of Ben because of... Given Art Wars.

Star Wars and NFTs - a marriage made in heaven.

I was like, "Ben, you kind of need to get on this now

"because you've only got so many months

"before it's going to kind of fall off a bit."

Bran knew all about it.

He'd made 80 grand in the previous month.

And then I thought,

"OK, well, let's just go along with whatever his plan is."

You know? Er...

Cos, I mean, 80 grand sounded fine to me.

I supplied Ben with the photography

that I had from the original Art Wars.

CAMERA CLICKS

He was like my sort of spirit guide

into the next chapter of what happened.

I've heard about Art Wars around October 2021.

There was a blog about it mentioning the fact that Star Wars

was officially going to start an NFT,

which was massive.

I searched Ben Moore.

That's how I found out that he had an art gallery with the helmets.

And when I saw the pictures of the exhibition,

I was just like, "Damn! This looks good!"

Art Wars is a body of work ten years in the making.

I called upon all the best artists that I knew in the world,

and asked them to take the normal white stormtrooper helmet...

..and put their iconic mark onto it.

And we're digitalising it.

So these Art Wars,

it is actually, er, stormtrooper helmets from Star Wars.

Art Wars appears to be a unique offering.

Unlike any NFT that's come before,

it promises a connection to a global movie franchise...

..with work by some of the world's leading artists.

There is some big names, as well, involved,

including someone like Damien Hirst.

Definitely think that is cool.

It's a combination designed to be irresistible.

Anything he's involved, definitely is going to be nice to pick up.

The fact that it was Star Wars, Damien Hirst, all these big names,

NFTs were peaking also at that time, 2021.

So it was just perfect, you know?

Art Wars - what's the deal with this project?

These are, like, pretty sick-looking.

The floor price is nearly two ETH. They're pretty cool.

It's where all the action's at.

I can't believe I'm so late to it. I'm pissed off.

The sale is gaining serious traction online...

..enticing NFT collectors, like Joey Strachan...

When you hear names like Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor,

really big names in the art world, you automatically think,

"That's going to be worth a shitload of money."

..and street artist Gasman-Butano.

I thought, "Of all the NFTs I've seen,

"this one looks special.

"This is the one I'll dip my toe in the water with."

Art Wars had all the ingredients to be a unique investment.

I was going to own a piece of Star Wars history.

I did think, "This could be it!"

I am an ultra-contemporary artist.

Embracing NFTs was a business decision for me.

You know, the boom that we were in,

this is a really attractive environment,

but it's also a frenzied environment.

It's a "jump on the bandwagon really fast" environment.

The Art Wars NFT sale aspires to feature many more helmets

than were part of the original exhibition.

And that's where digital artists like Amy Karle come in.

This project looked huge.

I saw a number of artists

who I recognised, too - some big-name artists.

The curator was Ben Moore.

I see that he was associated with a blue chip gallery,

which was Saatchi.

I didn't know him, but I didn't have any reason not to trust him.

Along with the other new artists, Amy will be creating

computer-generated helmets from scratch.

I was invited to make two digital artworks.

One piece they would sell to a collector,

and the other piece I could choose to keep,

or sell, or do what I want with.

It looked like it was going to make a lot of money

and be very successful...

..you know, as long as it was all done properly.

In the NFT world, you definitely felt like you were

at the beginning of a wave of something new and exciting.

It was like a dark magic.

By the autumn of 2021...

..there are some emerging masters in this dark magic.

Mysterious, Svengali-like figures

who run NFT sales behind the scenes...

..for a price.

All businessmen are shrewd.

As an artist, you have to be aware of that,

that they're going to try and manipulate you to make money.

I mean, that's what galleries do, isn't it?

But are they going to open a door

to another world that I don't know about?

There are two NFT gurus that Bran's already worked with

that are on the lookout for new opportunities.

I had introduced Ben to these guys.

They were well-rehearsed within that world.

These two men will operate out of sight

and will only be known by their crypto handles.

I met Crypto Cowboy in the pub.

And then I went on a zoom call with NFT Master.

He spoke to me from his quite vast-looking,

impressive house in Thailand,

and my first impression was,

"Yeah, this is a guy who knows what he's doing," you know?

If Ben's got something in his head, it's very difficult to get it out.

But he doesn't take advice very easily.

I think he had a few shadows that formed around him.

He found some people in certain circles

that I wouldn't have liked to see him in.

He saw a pot of gold that was sitting there, ready,

at the end of the NFT rainbow, and he took it with both hands.

You imagine that all the governmental banking systems

that run our societies are kind of similar to the Death Star.

And that this NFT, this cryptocurrency,

is almost like a rebel alliance.

With the Art Wars NFT,

there are links to Star Wars, links to the rebellion,

and so that might appeal to those types of people

who are quite anarchical.

The stormtroopers of the Art Wars collection

are the ones who managed to escape from the Death Star

and liberate themselves.

The art world is quite an elite, gated community.

This was a way of revolutionising that.

It's new technology, and it's disruptive technology,

so, in many ways, it can liberate people.

It's a bit like the Wild West,

but there is a lot of money to be made.

The sale is launching into a completely unregulated market.

There's potentially a lot to gain, but everything to lose.

I've been a bartender-slash-waiter for most of my life.

It was a pretty big deal for me,

so I was really aware of the money I was putting in it.

Of course, NFTs can be a gamble,

but seeing the hype around the project,

I was pretty convinced that it would be a safe investment.

What I didn't like about it all was the element of how urgent it was,

of how quickly it needed to be done.

But...the team was saying, "It needs to be done now

"because it's at its peak...

"..like a piece of fruit just ready and ripe to pick off the tree...

"..and it's about to start dropping down, so we have to get it now."

Usually, when I'm invited to projects,

there's a huge lead time.

But in this case, I was invited, like, a few weeks before the drop,

so everything had to happen really fast.

I had to just kind of keep moving forward, making the artwork...

..to make sure it was ready to mint.

And the other artists did, too.

The sale promises high-quality, individually-created works.

But even with the addition of Amy and other new artists,

the project is well short of the NFTs it needs.

The way that this NFT made money was due to volume.

So, if you were just selling 50 NFTs,

it would make, like, 100 grand, or something.

But if you're selling 1,000 of them,

then you're making...

..proper money.

With only two weeks to go, the team are over 1,000 helmets short.

They'll need to do whatever it takes to get them created in time.

Mate, it's good. It's all good.

1,138 images.

Let's do this.

Building up to the launch, Crypto Cowboy was in Bosnia...

..working with Chewsnacca...

CHEWBACCA HOWLS

..making sure that the bulk of all the helmets

that were computer-generated were made.

I'm not sure if he's actually an artist,

more of a graphic designer.

CHEWBACCA HOWLS

At the time, I wasn't aware that there was just one guy

making so many helmets,

and quite how badly done a lot of the computer-generated helmets were.

Oh, it's fucking done, mate!

17 days,

16 to 18 hours a day,

I have just completed it.

ECHOING: Done 'em! Done 'em! Done 'em! Done 'em! Done 'em!

Done 'em! Done 'em! Done 'em! Done 'em! Done 'em!

So, the way the drop was organised, it was going to be a lottery.

You couldn't rush to buy

the Damien Hirst or Anish Kapoor or something,

so people had to pay quite a bit of money to purchase these artworks

before they even know what they are.

Each helmet in this lucky dip is on sale for the same price,

roughly £2,000, payable in the cryptocurrency Ethereum, or ETH.

You don't know what you're going to get,

so that can be another big part of the drive

to get buyers interested and to get more money.

There were some fantastic artists on those helmets,

so the chance of getting one of those was brilliant.

I mean, I could have got a Damien Hirst, one of one.

I think there were like some legit artists that had actually done this.

This is a pretty big project.

A few days before the drop, we started hearing some of the hype

and thought, "Oh, this is getting some significant attention

"from people who are in the industry, from people who know."

What is going on, all my crypto friends?

I might just go try and FOMO in for one of these after the show, guys.

When I look at this stuff that's on the screen right now,

it looks like really, really good 3D art.

As the hours and minutes tick away,

the potential investors take to the online chatroom Discord,

where NFT communities are hosted.

Being in the Discord, I was excited because, at the time,

I was just convinced this was going to blow up so much

that it was going to make me rich, you know?

I was on Discord, talking to people, getting hyped up about it.

There was a lot of FOMO,

so a lot of fear of missing out.

The general feeling of everybody in the Discord was happiness.

They were just happy they were part of it.

"I can't wait for this." "I'm going to get the Damien Hirst."

"I'm going to do this." "I'm going to get that."

"It's going to be worth this much."

The expectations were really high.

It just gets crazy, and people start getting the wildest ideas.

The hype's getting up.

It's a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of, like,

"What am I going to get?" "What's going to be revealed?"

This feeling of, like, Vegas excitement, casino...

That is part of the experience, the build-up.

It is a rush.

It's kind of like Christmas.

I've set an alarm to be sure to not miss it.

It just goes super, super quick.

I went out to the shops, and I come back,

and I remember running back upstairs, thinking,

"Oh, shit, it might be on!"

I was running up the stairs. Looked at it.

It still hadn't happened yet.

And then probably smoked about, like, 20 cigarettes

just watching the screen.

Looking at the clock every five minutes, like,

"When's it going to happen? When's it going to happen?"

I got ready, I got prepared

because I thought there would be a fastest-finger battle.

And then...it was open to the public.

I bought one.

I was just so ecstatic,

so happy, because everything clicked.

FIREWORKS POP

I was watching the clock.

I waited for the minutes to come down.

And then suddenly it all deflated, as I realised they'd all been sold.

That's the button. Didn't work.

Cos there were so many people out there,

trying to get it at the same time, I missed it! I didn't even get any!

The whole collection sold out in five seconds.

When it actually... In front of my eyes,

I could see that it had actually made that money,

and I was told, it was confirmed, and I knew it had happened,

I just fucking went mad!

I mean, to go from running on empty

to suddenly being into the realm of a million...

..I was just elated.

MUSIC: Marea (We've Lost Dancing) by Fred Again and the Blessed Madonna

Finally, I'd made it.

We've just made, like, stupid amounts of money.

It was just pure, unlimited ecstasy.

Yeah.

GUNSHOTS

Just made about two mil on NFT.

HE LAUGHS

Yeah, that's how we roll!

We made it on the NFT, that's what I'm saying!

Were you concerned at all about repercussions at this point?

Um...

No.

PHONE LINE RINGS

ANSWER MACHINE BEEPS

You are a fucking millionaire.

How do you feel?

ANSWER MACHINE BEEPS

Hey, buddy. Um, well, what can I say?

HE LAUGHS

Fucking insane. I'm in shock.

Everyone within the industry is fucking shocked as well.

They're just like, "This has never gone down so quick."

ANSWER MACHINE BEEPS

This situation, I mean,

I suppose I'm absolutely over the fucking moon!

I wouldn't be surprised

if we were worth ten million by the end of this.

Ah!

After the day of selling the NFTs, he was elated. Very happy.

He... You know, nothing could touch him.

He was on cloud nine.

But, er, clouds can be dark as well as light.

And I think storm clouds were coming.

DARTH VADER RESPIRATOR RASPS

So now, if you look at OpenSea,

they've already been selling for a pretty good...

The floor price is already at 3.6.

When I last looked, it was two.

I probably should have bought one when it was at two.

The important thing with NFTs, at the time,

was it was all about the after-sale.

it was all about people trading the NFTs.

And I think that's when

the large amount of money was going to kick in.

The early people to buy, buy it for a lower rate,

and then they could resell it,

and sometimes flip it really fast and make good money on it.

MUSIC: Ooh La La by Goldfrapp

With the after-sale trading under way,

those that missed out get another chance to buy.

The FOMO creeps in, and you start thinking,

"I want this! I want this!"

But the price is going up.

So, the next day, I decided to pull the trigger

and went all in, probably about £6,000.

I bought one.

And then I bought three more on the aftermarket.

So, now if you look at OpenSea,

they've already been selling for a pretty good price.

I probably should have bought one when it was at two.

In that moment, I was feeling, like,

"Look at how much money it's making."

I get what the hype around NFTs was.

That's when I, like, really just felt it.

The price was jumping all over the place.

So I was thinking, "Wow, you know, if it's this popular,

"where could this go?"

Within the first few days, hundreds of trades are made,

with Ben and his team getting a cut of every single one.

Yeah, man, they're...they're like hotcakes.

Going like fucking hotcakes.

The cheapest one up for sale at the moment is fucking $25,000.

# Switch me on

# Turn me up... #

Every now and again, I'd get a message saying

"We just made another 200 grand in royalties."

That was constantly coming into the wallet all the time.

It was just like winning the jackpot in a....

All the money in the casino.

I remember, like, running around in my kitchen,

looking at my phone, and I kept refreshing the screen,

seeing what the sales were like,

and they were just going up and up and up.

It felt like the drama of Vegas.

It was way more money than what was expected.

I had never even handled anything close to that kind of money before.

He got a car. He got a Bentley

with a personalised number plate, I think.

# Made for love

# I need la la la la la I need... #

It wasn't all fast cars.

Ben also made a donation of £30,000 to charity.

So we'd had our honeymoon period,

and I thought, "There's probably trouble coming,

"but probably got a few days before it all kicks off."

# I need oooh la la la la... #

The next thing that happened was that we got wind

that Damien Hirst pulled out of the project.

Hirst is one of the biggest artists in the whole world.

So to have his name associated with this project

added a lot of value.

This way, guys. This way, please.

From the start, I said to the Crypto Brothers,

"Please, please, don't feature Damien Hirst's helmet."

Damien Hirst is known in the art world...

..to have the most aggressive lawyers behind him.

I think that was the first sign I saw of trouble brewing.

The project has lost its poster boy.

And the question for collectors like Samir...

..is should they stick or twist?

I was pretty concerned, even though they said

they had the rights and that everything was going like planned,

but clearly it wasn't.

But I was still optimistic about it because it's still Star Wars,

and it still seemed legit.

People were convinced it was just a minor inconvenience,

and eventually it would be OK.

So Ben came into the Discord community and let us know

about what was going on, but also kind of blew it off, like,

"Oh, his team called my team, and everything's all set."

And, you know, being in the art world, I see this kind of stuff.

So I didn't feel good about it, I didn't like it,

but sometimes these things happen.

A lot of people worried that he had pulled out,

but I respected his decision.

I've worked in collaborative shows before where, for whatever reason,

an artist has pulled out, whether they've fallen out with someone,

whether the timing's bad.

You're dealing with a bunch of narcissists, at the end of the day.

Well, let's talk about the reveal.

This is the most exciting stage.

The art is revealed.

It's only now, after three days of trading,

that the collectors will find out what they've actually bought...

..and whether their gamble has paid off.

So I showed up for the reveal,

and it really just quickly took a turn

for something I was not expecting at all.

There were some people in the community

who started raising red flags

that there was really poorly made artwork in the collection.

My helmet that I revealed, it wasn't...it wasn't anything special,

but it wasn't as bad as some of them.

I was happy with one piece that was pretty unique...

..but then I was a bit disappointed in the three other ones

that I have because they were very similar.

And then I noticed, when looking at all the helmets,

a lot of them was just duplicates.

Some of these pieces were appallingly bad.

We were essentially seeing wallpaper art

being put on top of these helmets.

It had been rushed.

People started questioning what was going on.

That was the first time I learned that there was a number of helmets

that were made, that were just kind of mass-produced

and thrown in there.

There was quite a bit of disappointment.

So it was a bit of everything, combined with the fact

that Damien Hirst also pulled out of it, etc,

that I was starting to worry about my money.

So even though all of these different straws are mounting up

and there was all these red flags, the price still kept going up.

The overall sentiment was that, "We can solve these problems,

"we can keep this project going. We can keep making money."

The issues with the mass-produced Bosnian helmets

doesn't seem to have much impact on the value of the trades.

CHEWBACCA HOWLS

I mean, even these badly rushed jobs

were still selling at, you know, serious money.

Sometimes it doesn't matter

how good or bad the image of the artwork you've bought is,

it's more the fact that you own a limited edition of something

that apparently is very valuable.

The pink one, the pink helmet, sold for 50 grand in crypto,

and that's the biggest sale I've ever done.

For the organisers, the money is still pouring in,

5% of every trade, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Despite the problems, it seems they're untouchable.

The team were always convincing me

that it was all...it was all fine, it's all going to be sorted.

But, in my own head, I was like, "There's so much that can go wrong."

Were you aware of...of...of this NFT sale?

And if you weren't, when did you first hear anything about it?

I think I was first aware...

I think... I can't remember which...who it was,

but one of the artists kind of, like, reached out

and said, "You know, your work's being exploited, and mine is, too.

"What you want to do about it?"

I received a tweet telling me about the sale.

I was entirely new to the NFT world and such things.

I didn't really understand what I was being told

until I looked into it further, and then it quickly unravelled.

I called people, I emailed people.

I just wanted to make everyone aware as quick as possible

so that we could take action as quick as possible.

I, like a lot of other artists, knew nothing.

The first I knew was Unskilled Worker contacted me via Instagram

and said, "Do you know about this?"

Sent me a screen grab of the helmet that I made in a Twitter post.

A friend of mine

sent me a screen capture of my sculpture.

You know, a very grainy thing. And then underneath it, it said ETH,

E-T—H, with that little triangle sign.

And then, what I later found out was about £8,500 on it or something,

you know, like, um...

And that was the first I knew about it, yeah.

Max, my assistant, was on Discord,

and he's like, "Hey, it seems like

"Ben's releasing your helmet as an NFT."

And I was like, "What? What...what are you talking about?"

So it already sent up a big flare,

red flag of, like, what are you doing?

And why wouldn't you have asked me about that?

I was told by Chemical X, another of the artists,

that mine had sold for substantial money,

but I couldn't figure out what the money was,

cos it was all codes I'd never seen before.

Some things were saying 100,000, some things were saying £5,000.

It seemed... It became quite apparent that, in fact,

he hadn't contacted anyone.

And people are mad about it. Rightfully so.

Obviously, Hayden was incensed, as was I,

and most of the people that found out about it.

I didn't know him well enough to have any influence on him,

apart from wanting to maybe pop round and break his legs.

Ben then made me aware

that a couple of the artists had reached out to him,

and were a bit disgruntled

because they felt they hadn't been asked in the appropriate manner.

That's the first time

I really heard intellectual property being mentioned.

From the start, I said there's not enough time to do this properly,

to get all the artists' permission.

You know, the sensible person would be like,

"Right, so let's not do it at all."

And when you've got like 1 million or 2 million, you know,

staring you in the face on the other side of this,

then it's kind of difficult to not do it.

His initial response was that,

"I emailed you, telling you it was happening."

Oh-ho-ho! You have a look at the email.

He sent out a little round robin saying,

"Oh, we're doing this, we're thinking of doing that.

"We've got..." Like anybody else does. "And we might get into NFTs."

That's not the same as saying,

"We're going to do an NFT drop using your stuff.

"Is that OK?"

I didn't read that email.

If I did receive it, I certainly wasn't paying any attention.

And why would you not address me personally,

having worked with me personally?

And what was his response?

Max, what was Ben's response?

He basically said, "Oh, I was going to get around

"to telling you about that. Sorry I didn't mention it."

After the helmets got revealed,

a couple of artists started talking on Twitter

that they were not happy with the fact

that their name had been used, and their art.

And then indeed, people were just angry

because there's been lies.

After another blow to the credibility of the sale,

the NFT collectors take to the Discord chatroom

to voice their concerns.

I was in that chatroom with collectors as an artist,

and they're like, "What's going on here? What did you know?"

And somebody came over and said,

"Hey, Amy, Chemical X is saying stuff,

"and Unskilled Worker's saying stuff,

"that their artwork was used without their permission."

So this was a huge sign something was going wrong.

And this was in the first few days of the reveal.

After the kind of things started going downhill...

..people had a lot of questions,

they wanted a lot of answers,

so the community was, you know, banding together.

When these problems were raised,

I quickly realised we were in big trouble,

and this was not going to get fixed.

He didn't ask any of their permission.

He just did it.

So it all became very dark and muddy.

Nobody took responsibility.

The sale is in a precarious state.

Behind the scenes, the Crypto Brothers urge Ben

to speak directly to the disgruntled collectors.

I was made aware that it was kind of vital that I be the face of it...

..to keep up the morale of the whole thing.

You can handle anything with comedy.

People will throw IP questions at you for drama,

and if you can disarm them with comedy,

then you'll get away with murder.

How are you doing, Kaiser?

HE CHUCKLES Er, I'm doing OK, Ben. How are you?

Pretty good, man. It's been a pretty crazy week.

Stakes are high, passions are high,

so welcome to the game.

I didn't even know what Discord was until, one evening,

I found myself the main guest.

I have to apologise for not being

more on top of the communication with the artists,

although, as I always stand by,

I did send out a notification about the NFT drop

on the 4th of November. And I've always made sure

that part of the proceeds be reserved for the artists

who have been such a major part of this.

These are solvable problems.

They're ugly, they all came together, this is tough,

but as long as we've got you, Ben, we're gonna get through this OK.

I thought it was amazing how you handled that. It was brilliant.

You did that like the emperor, to be honest.

You were perfect.

And I think with the attitude that we've got, at the moment,

I think we'll get through anything.

To me, the fact that there was communication,

and that they were listening to us, kind of felt like,

"OK, they maybe messed up, but it maybe could be OK still."

Ben has set aside some money to pay the artists.

His hope is that his offer of payment

will mean their helmets can continue to be traded.

Many accept the money.

Others are going to make a stand.

I was offering as much as 10,000, 12,000 to some of them,

depending on how much content they had in the NFT drop.

They just threw it back in my face.

They offered me £2,500 from sales

of which I think over £20,000 were generated

from my work, at that point.

I think I was offered something like, I don't know, 1,500 quid.

It...it was irrelevant

because he wasn't acknowledging what he'd done.

The attempts made were to keep Ben Moore's show on the road.

As it was... The longer it was live and active,

the more revenue it was generating for him and his team.

The only way to stop them being worth anything at all

was to have the sale pulled.

Within two weeks of the sale,

12 of its highest-profile artists have pulled their helmets

from the largest trading platform, OpenSea.

They put a takedown notice to OpenSea

and their helmets were off the market.

If you can't sell on OpenSea and it can't be found on OpenSea,

that's a really bad sign.

It's called FUD, fear, uncertainty and doubt.

It's something that happens a lot in, you know, the NFT space,

so much so that it can sometimes ruin a project.

I got a tip-off from a source that this was happening.

I got in touch with the artists whose work had been used

without their knowledge or their consent.

Some artists who I got in touch with

had no idea that this had even happened.

When the Financial Times breaks the story,

the sale, and its controversial aftermath,

immediately gets broader attention.

I'd known of other instances of this happening in the NFT world,

but because you had these high-profile artists,

that meant that the story was really strong.

I should have saw at the moment,

but I just couldn't accept the fact that they were worth so much

and then suddenly so little.

The negative press is having an impact

on the value of the remaining NFTs.

I was thinking it's maybe just worth waiting until the dust settles,

everybody calms down, maybe we'll get some decent answers

and reasons why all of this is happening.

So, around this time, there was just so much confusion.

The drop wasn't really what we were told it was going to be,

there was all different kinds of voices saying

all different kinds of things...

..but the rest of the collection were still existing

and still being traded.

I was thinking and feeling like,

"OK, Art Wars can still make this right."

Here we are on our way out of Orcines

to the grand capital of France, Paris.

I took my family down to the Alps, French Alps,

on an incredible skiing trip.

Good turn!

Fulfilled one of my kids' dreams, which was to go to Disneyland...

Whee, Dad!

Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad.

..which, by the way, was a complete fucking nightmare.

You know, when you start turning money into things

that exist in the real world, it does feel pretty real.

But a weird time because, on the one hand,

suddenly, you've got all this money...

..but, on the other hand, your life is just full -

from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep -

trying to...

..sort out all these problems.

And...

..it just seemed like such an impossible mess to sort out.

I had a few calls with Ben.

You know, I didn't know him before this project at all.

And, like, I remember one of the first ones, like,

he was in the bathtub when we were talking,

which was really unprofessional.

And, like, he didn't seem so...so concerned about the project,

which was funny because, to me and to a lot of the collectors,

there was a lot of concern.

I mean, Ben, these people have put a lot of faith in you

and a lot of money in this project. They believe in you.

And, I mean, I think the least they deserve is...

..is the time of day, you know?

They just want to know what's going on behind closed doors.

If there are no updates, then we don't really need to do an AMA,

but I think that's all people want to know about right now.

BEN SLURS: I've got GuantaBean saying

you're taking advantage of a drunk man.

No.

It's one o'clock on a Friday evening in London.

I got drunk...

..at the end of a long working week,

thanks to all you lot.

BEN CHUCKLES

It was really weird.

I have never experienced something like this in my professional career.

And it was getting more and more concerning.

The more things that came out, the worse it was.

I think some of the rumours were

that they just... That it was a cash grab,

so they just wanted to take as much money as possible

and then just abandon the project.

Um, but, of course, I didn't know what was true and what wasn't.

And I think it's around that time that we saw the video emerge

of Ben Moore shooting with his gun and bragging about 2 million.

Yeah.

Just made, er, like, about two mil on NFT.

GUN CLICKS

Yeah.

GUNSHOTS

That's what we're talking about.

THEY LAUGH

Yeah, that's how we roll. Two mil on the NFT!

One of the collectors has got hold of a video

from Ben's private Instagram account and circulated it online.

I was just so angry.

A lot of people were so angry and the bragging, etc,

it was just such a backstab.

He never struck me as that person, so it seemed strange

that he'd then post some crazy Instagram video

of him bragging about how much money he made.

What did you think when you saw that?

"What a cunt!"

That told me everything that I need to know.

He was there to rip us off.

ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYS

With the Art Wars project hanging by a thread,

all eyes are on Ben.

And the pressure is beginning to show.

It was quite a wild couple of weeks.

Well, he seemed to be off his face most of the time,

doing completely batshit "ask me anything" things on Discord.

Absolute madness.

BEN SLURS: What has happened is a digital crime, you know?

Or... Yeah, it's digital crime.

You know, it's like, er...

Wow!

It's like Art Wars actually turns into art wars.

It was so upsetting.

You know, we're looking for answers.

There's people who have invested a lot of money,

and the project is clearly going downhill,

and there's big problems that need to be solved.

And he's getting on,

talking about absolute nonsense when he's drunk.

So I just thought... Yeah, I just thought,

"He's a man unravelling," is what I actually thought.

BEN SLURS: How do you, like, even quantify that shit?

And like...

Because I... The way I rolled was, like, I was happy to have

loads of money or no money. Right.

I'm always happy, I always have... Always have the equilibrium happy.

With either.

But you know what?

I just want to make it all good for everyone...

I appreciate that. ..as I always do, and I've always done that.

Yeah... I always make sure that everyone comes out good,

and anything I'm attached to,

I want make sure everyone come out good.

Oh, my God!

Oh!

DARTH VADER RESPIRATOR RASPS

INAUDIBLE

It was just coming up to Christmas, and I'd received an email.

It was one of those emails that, um, when you open it,

tells whoever sent it that it's been opened.

Lawyers tend to use that.

"Dear Mr Moore,

"We represent Lucasfilm, which owns the copyrights, trademarks

"and other rights in Star Wars and its characters,

"including the Imperial stormtrooper characters

"and their iconic helmets."

HE CLEARS HIS THROAT

"Your sale and dissemination of so-called Art Wars' NFTs

"infringes Lucasfilm's rights,

"and it hereby demands that you cease and desist

"from this unlawful conduct immediately."

Disney and Lucas just went up to OpenSea and...

..scared them.

It was ripped off.

Um, yeah.

It was, basically, like the end.

The whole project was taken off of OpenSea.

And in the Discord, like, there's just so much distrust

and upset and anger now,

because now the most major trading platform for NFTs

is saying, "You can no longer do business here."

With the collectors unable to trade,

their Art Wars NFTs are now essentially...

..worthless.

I checked for myself, and it just gave me an error

because the page didn't exist any more.

There was just no way to sell anything.

People were just trying to get out as quickly as possible.

They were worthless.

I remember sending emails to OpenSea

in the hopes they would help me or refund anything

but, of course, they mentioned they couldn't do anything about it.

They don't owe you anything.

So I felt really helpless. I felt, um...

Yeah, I lost a lot of money.

I didn't do my homework enough, clearly.

I did not do enough due diligence.

But it's important to note, yes, there is a gambling element to this,

but ultimately we were lied to.

We were lied to multiple times in multiple different ways.

And they made informed decisions, right?

They were being told, "We have the rights to do this,"

so they based a decision...

..on what was lies.

To me, Ben is the responsible one.

He's the one to blame.

Now things have gone south...

..Ben's left alone in the spotlight.

His collaborators remain hidden from view.

No-one knew about the Crypto Brothers.

I didn't realise that everyone hides behind these crypto names

and that... they're completely untraceable.

It just looked like I was the... the mastermind of the entire thing.

And so I was at the forefront of everyone's anger.

And I suppose that did start to become a bit of a shock

when you realise just how exposed you are.

Many of the collectors are tens of thousands out of pocket.

They're angry, and some are desperate.

I did fear for Ben's safety quite a few times.

You know, people had invested probably more money

than they could afford in some NFTs, and they took it personally.

With the NFT buyers, there's over a thousand of them,

and you've got no idea who some of these characters are.

It just went...

It was just that terrible feeling of, like, "Oh, God!"

And then people start coming over to the flat.

And, what, you've come all the way down from Blackpool?

I get that. I get that.

Um, but I'm not the boss here.

I'm the front man which is getting blamed for everything, yeah?

Who's that in the background?

I think he felt that there were a lot of people after him.

There WERE a lot of people after him.

I mean, it felt quite unsafe.

And I can understand why people would have been really very angry.

I definitely think he was...

He'd hit a low point, and a lot of regret

and a lot of realisation that he'd really screwed it up.

There was a lot of eruptions about it, you know,

and people talking about suing, and people talking about

nailing him to the floor and sawing his legs off.

You know, this idea was

that he had become this multi-millionaire overnight.

How much money did Ben make?

I don't know.

Genuinely don't know.

Do you know how much money he made, personally?

All I know is what he said in the video,

and that's 2 million.

And he just ran away with it.

Initially it was 3 million,

then, three days later, I was told it was 5 million.

I've heard all sorts of wild amounts of money.

I heard rumours that he had a new kitchen out of it.

HE SCOFFS

They made sales in excess of 1,425 ETH.

That was about 6.5 million USD.

That was a huge amount of money.

Crazy. Do you know what I mean?

Like, you talk about it now, you're like,

"Holy Moley! That's serious retirement money," you know?

I don't know what happened to that money.

They probably think that I'm sauntering around in a silk robe

on some sandy island somewhere...

# G-L-A... #

..that I'm hanging out on a yacht with lots of beautiful people...

# Flying first class... #

..going out to really nice restaurants

and having three-course meals.

Jumping on a private jet.

# Ooh, the flossy, flossy Are you ready?

# The glamorous

# The glamorous, glamorous... #

Yeah.

RECORD SCRATCH

All of that!

I don't mind them thinking that because I'd rather people think

that I'm rich than knowing that I'm poor.

There have been fresh shock waves sent through the crypto markets

after the leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, fell below $20,000

to its weakest price in 18 months.

Cryptocurrencies are all feeling the pinch,

with one unfortunate losing 99% of its value this week.

It's May 2022.

Ben's holding the remaining proportion of his share

of the sale proceeds in the cryptocurrency USDT.

REPORTER: Crypto values have slumped in the past few hours.

Investors now face billions of dollars in losses.

One morning, I woke up,

and I'd lost half of it.

That just left me on a losing foot

because I owed more than what I had left.

115,824.

And they have attached correspondence,

saying that I owe a further 25,000.

Ben's also been dealing with the legal issues

resulting from the sale, both with the artists and Lucasfilm.

So these, these are the US lawyers.

They responded to a one-page letter from Lucasfilm and Disney,

and then this bill here goes to 42,551.

Fuck them!

In total, he's spent over £500,000 on lawyers.

All these things are just pushing me into bankruptcy.

I am just basically unable to pay them.

Cos you've literally got nothing right now, right? Nothing. Yeah.

I mean, at the moment I can't even buy a drink at the pub.

I just feel...

..gutted, on so many levels.

People do fuck up...

..and I have.

So...

..that's where I'm at.

He really hasn't got any money.

Ben does live in a council flat in Richmond,

and he's not actually living in a beautiful house in France,

and he hasn't got, you know, lots of cars.

And he's literally, you know, stone broke.

I've got to sacrifice my baby.

KEYS RATTLE

There you go, buddy.

# Ta-dah! # Nice.

13,359.

Um... What, and you can do it right now?

The money will come tomorrow.

He really hasn't benefited at all.

I think he realised, almost instantaneously,

that any money he'd made on that night

was certainly not going to be his for very long.

I think it was a very short-lived moment of happiness for him.

Ever since the NFT debacle, I haven't really done...

..anything.

I think all I've worked on or done

is just trying to clear up all the mess

that the NFT thing has left behind.

We were very surprised at how self-destructive

this was for him.

He'd spent so much time building up these relationships

with these artists, and then, in one fell stroke, he just destroyed it.

It's a small world. Word spreads real quick.

Um, you know, and you burn those people once,

it's very hard for them to...to come back with open arms.

You know, your reputation -

you might spend years building your reputation.

And, as in Ben's case, you can lose it like that, in a snap.

And that's what he's done. He's completely knackered his reputation.

Probably irretrievably.

I know, for me, it took a big toll on my mental health.

I wasn't a part of what happened. Like, I was duped, too.

I never made any money from that.

We were all screwed in this process, the artists and the collectors.

It's a scam, and people don't want to be involved with scammers.

If you're being completely honest, was this a scam?

That wasn't my intention. It was not my intention to do a scam.

I just thought if we make sure that there is money

set aside for these artists...

My philosophy is get to where the money is,

and then sort out the problems,

rather than trying to sort it out before,

which could create more problems

and stop the whole thing from happening at all.

It could still be generating money even today

if it had been done differently.

If everything would have continued until now,

it would have been one of the most successful projects

that, er... ever existed in the NFT space.

Maybe never have to work again in your life.

Life-changing.

REPORTER: Trading in NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, has collapsed.

For everyone in the world of NFTs in 2021 and 2022,

dreams of a glorious future were short-lived.

I feel like this was inevitable.

Yeah. I never got on board with it. I never understood why people

were paying tens of millions of dollars for something

that they don't actually own the physical picture of.

Since the rapid decline in NFT trading in 2022,

the market has not really recovered,

and, at the end of 2023, it is estimated

that over 90% of NFTs ever issued are worthless.

The thing about that moment in time, it was a perfect storm.

Unfortunately, the hype was so quick,

and there was so much speculation

that it could only, inevitably, crash or plateau.

My experience of NFTs has proven that they are very much gimmicky,

flash in the pan, a quick buck,

and I don't think NFTs have any great merit or future.

During the NFT craze, I was really hopeful.

That was an exciting time.

I don't know where that lands for the future.

We're in a little bit of a crypto and NFT winter right now,

but there are still really quality artists and projects out there.

Many people will look at NFTs and laugh at them and say,

"How is this valuable?"

But they don't understand that this young generation coming in

have different ideas of what value means.

We're constantly attracted towards things

which cooperates with our sense of desire.

NFTs are a kind of financial attractors, as is any work of art,

as is any capitalistic object, as any object,

unless it's a rock in a desert.

Unless it's an NFT of a rock in the desert!

The problem, unfortunately, did set us back

because it created this impression

that NFTs were only these big, expensive, highly scammy projects.

But every time you go into these markets and there's a boom and bust,

three or four years later, the same people who participated then,

they come back because they're not scared of it,

and they're like, "Oh, there's another opportunity here.

"I understand this."

I'm not saying it'll be a boom like before,

but they won't be afraid of using NFTs.

I'm sure people in years to come will be looking back at this

and laughing, because we were just at the...the beginning

of something very huge.

What is the plan?

Well, I've got a lot of stuff to do with my accountants,

tax, various different people that I owe money to

that I'm having to constantly negotiate with and calm down.

Just the usual day-to-day stuff.

Do you feel fearful about the future in the art world?

Um, no, not at all.

There's nothing to be fearful about.

It's just work.

HE LAUGHS

I'm going to just quickly smoke this.

I'm sort of torn between utter, abject fear...

..um, and also a kind of feeling

that Ben is like a cat with nine lives,

and he really is one of these people that just seems to bob back.

My take on it...

..is that Ben got swept up in it.

I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was,

a lot of it was just weakness and getting played...played, really.

But then also a bit of greed thrown in, yeah.

I think that he should be cancelled

because, fundamentally, he has betrayed everybody.

I'd really like Ben Moore to stop working in the art world...

..cos I think he's a crook.

I think that he's fallen into some kind of digital abyss

that he didn't really reckon with.

And I think he just thought that because he saw all these artists

as being hugely successful and rich, that no-one would really care.

I think he just got caught.

Everyone makes mistakes. Life's not perfect, you know?

Shit happens.

Some bad calls are made.

This was clearly one of his worst calls.

I'd like to think that everyone deserves a second chance.

I guess I would say, yeah, I am sorry that this has happened,

that it happened the way it did.

Um...

And, er...

Yeah, I would say that.

Um...but by saying that, it sounds like

I would say that I wouldn't do it. I have done it.

I would have still done it, but I am sorry about it.

HE CHUCKLES

Um, but when I was saying I'm sorry,

it's not saying I regret doing it, cos I don't want to say that.

I want to say I would have still done it. I would have still done it,

but I'm sorry if it's pissed you off.

That's how I would say it.

But I'm not going to say I wish I hadn't done it,

cos that's...that's not true.

So it's a weird one.