UPDATE 11/9: After an investigation, Yuga Labs says it "determined that UV-A emitting lights installed in one corner of the event was likely the cause of the reported issues related to attendees’ eyes and skin."
Original story:
After causing plenty of pain for investors last year, NFTs are starting to cause physical agony for some unlucky supporters of the digital collectibles.
This past weekend, a festival promoting NFTs of the Bored Ape Yacht Club was held in Hong Kong. But now some attendees say the event ended up hurting their vision, possibly due to the powerful lights used at the venue.
“Anyone else’s eyes burning from last night? Woke up at 3am with extreme pain and ended up in the ER,” one user wrote on Twitter/X on Sunday.
Attendees at the so-called ApeFest suspect the event’s venue used ultraviolet lights, which caused eye damage over time. Others even report sunburns to the face and neck.
“I woke up at 04:00 and couldn’t see anymore. Had so much pain and my whole skin is burned. Needed to go to the hospital,” another attendee wrote on Twitter/X. “The doctor told me the uv of the lightning of the stage did it. It has the same effect as sunlight. Still can not see normally…”
“To all my friends who suffer now: go get your eyes checked. You’ve likely most literally got your eyes burnt with UV like I did,” wrote another attendee.
However, what exactly caused attendees to experience the eye damage remains unclear. For now, user-posted videos of ApeFest show it was held like a large rave, with a DJ playing music in front of three large screens. In the meantime, some attendees are calling on the event’s organizer, Yuga Labs —which is also the parent company of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs— to get to the bottom of the complaints.
For now, Yuga Labs has only said: “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,” the company added.