Fortnite Esports Star Wins Bored Ape Yacht Club Challenge

By Jason Nelson

Yuga Labs, the company behind the massively popular Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, announced the winner of its “Dookey Dash” endless runner game challenge on Wednesday.

“Many have dashed, more have dookey’d, but one person arrived,” the Bored Ape Yacht Club account tweeted. “Congratulations to @Mongraal, the Key is yours!”

Kyle “Mongraal” Jackson is an English esports player known for playing the battle royale game “Fortnite.” Last September, “Fortnite” creator Epic Games added the NFT-powered online creation game “Blankos Block Party” to the Epic Games Store, making the game the first Web3 title published on the popular PC gaming marketplace.

Over 25,000 players participated in the “Dookey Dash” challenge, open only to Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT holders. Members could mint exclusive “Sewer Pass” NFTs used as a power source in the race.

Secondary sales of the Sewer Pass NFTs topped 36,000 ETH, around $60 million, since they launched on January 18, when the makers of the Ethereum NFTs launched the game challenge with the promise that the highest-scoring gamer would receive a mysterious reward.

The challenge was plagued by claims of cheating and “boosters”—for-hire players being paid to play the game for the JPEG holder—pumping up their scores on the leaderboard.

Boosters charged between 0.25 ETH, around $420 at the time for a score of 250,000 or higher, and 2.5 ETH, around $4200 for a score of 700,000 or higher.

Others claimed the cheaters were using exploits that let them circumvent Yuga Labs’ anti-cheating measures.

“And a quick pat on the back to all of our players who played it fair and square,” Bored Ape Yacht Club wrote. “Only 2% of all scores were reset based on the score review process.”

“Congrats, king!” wrote Satvik Sethi, former Mastercard product lead for NFTs, responding to Mongraal’s win. “Cannot be understated. Please take extra precautions with your wallet security now,” he said. “Don’t click any random links, verify every URL and type things in yourself, don’t do any OTC trades and swaps, and plenty of threads and spaces out there to learn more.”

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