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Visitors to Bored Ape Crypto Festival report ‘vision problems’ after event | Technology news
Visitors to Bored Ape Yacht Club’s ApeFest event in Hong Kong report “burning eyes” and vision problems.
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT (non-fungible token) fans seem to have had a bad year overall. NFT collection prices have hit rock bottom this year along with an overall collapse in cryptocurrencies. Now, attendees at the ApeFest festival hosted by the company behind Bored Ape say they are suffering from “burning eyes”, extreme pain and vision problems due to the event’s strong UV lights.
NFTs like those that are part of the Bored Ape Club collection have increased in value alongside the cryptocurrency boom in 2021. Even though most of their value has declined since then, there are still plenty of cryptocurrency enthusiasts around. According to The Verge, the event organized by Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape, saw over 2,500 attendees.
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After the event ended, many people posted on social media complaining of a burning sensation in their eyes and, in some cases, vision problems.
“Monkeys, we are aware of the eye-related issues affecting some ApeFest attendees and have been proactively reaching out to people since yesterday to try to find the potential root causes. Based on our estimates, we believe that far less than 1% of those who attended and worked at the event had these symptoms,” the official Bored Ape Yacht Club account tweeted Monday.
Chloe Ge, one of the people who attended the event, told the Financial Times that she began to feel as if their eyes were “burned by hot chili” long after the party began at the event. There was a rapper performing and Ge described the stage lights as “pretty bright”. According to Ge, no one felt the effects immediately, but they were felt later.
Adrian Zduńczyk, another participant who is a cryptoanalyst, posted on social media platform X that he has been diagnosed with “accident-related photokeratitis,” or snow blindness. This is typically caused by exposure to UV rays. Zduńczyk added that his vision was subsequently examined and that he has no serious damage to his cornea.
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First upload on: 07-11-2023 at 16:03 IST