Metaverse Farm NFT Asset Leasing Scam: A 'Rug Pull' Scheme Using Virtual Land NFT Yields as Bait

Who Gets Targeted

The victims are primarily middle-aged and elderly individuals in third- or fourth-tier cities or lower-tier markets, as well as ordinary investors with idle capital but little knowledge of Web3 and blockchain. Misled by emerging tech concepts like the metaverse and the cloud farming economy, they are driven by greed and the wishful thinking of making big money with small investments. Many victims blindly increase their investments after receiving small initial withdrawals, firmly believing in the fake NFT asset certificates and transaction data provided by the platform, only to lose everything when the platform locks accounts and shuts down.

骗局怎么运作

• Packaging High-End Concepts: The operating gang typically registers a shell company with 'metaverse' or 'digital technology' in its name and creates a fake, professional-looking website and mobile app. They use AI to generate massive amounts of fake virtual farm and virtual land NFT images, claiming the project is in partnership with well-known blockchain entities. By daily posting fake office environments and forged business licenses in social groups, they project an image of a wealthy, legitimate enterprise to lower investors' defenses.
• High-Yield Virtual Asset Bait: The platform lists various NFT asset packages, such as virtual crops and land, within the app, encouraging investors to spend anywhere from tens to tens of thousands of yuan to purchase or lease these digital certificates. They claim these assets generate digital tokens or points with daily yields of 1% to 3%—far exceeding normal financial products or bank interest rates. They promise buybacks or withdrawals at market price at any time, using pseudo-technical jargon like 'smart contracts' to deceive investors.
• Multi-Level Referral Commission Mechanism: To scale the scam quickly, the platform designs a multi-level rebate model, encouraging early participants to recruit newcomers. Once a referred investor purchases or leases NFT assets, the referrer receives a direct commission of 10% to 20%, along with various active and passive income bonuses. Driven by profit, victims not only increase their own investments but also actively recruit friends and family, forming a typical pyramid-style network that accelerates the accumulation of the capital pool.
• Backend Manipulation and 'Rug Pull' Locking: Initially, the platform allows investors to withdraw daily virtual yields to their bank cards to build trust. Once the capital pool reaches a certain scale or new inflows slow down, the operators modify the rules in the backend, citing 'system upgrades' or 'hacker attacks' to restrict withdrawals, forcibly locking the virtual assets in investor accounts or delaying payments. In reality, they have already begun secretly transferring funds and preparing to flee.
• Shutting Down and Absconding: After absorbing sufficient funds, the gang suddenly shuts down servers, dissolves official WeChat groups and overseas chat groups, and wipes all on-chain asset records for investors. They then take down the domain and app, only to rebrand under a new concept and start over, leaving victims with nothing but worthless virtual code and fake NFTs, with no way to recover their losses.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Promises of high, guaranteed returns with abnormal daily yields (e.g., over 1%), which clearly violate normal investment logic and financial market principles.
• 🚩 The platform app is not listed on official app stores and is only available via installation packages sent through social groups, with domains frequently using anti-blocking redirects.
• 🚩 The so-called NFT assets sold have no ownership records on any mainstream public blockchain; they exist only in the platform's internal database and cannot be transferred or verified in a decentralized manner.
• 🚩 Core operation team information is vague, with executives often using aliases or fake foreign identities, and frequent changes to office addresses and third-party payment accounts before the collapse.
• 🚩 The business model relies heavily on a referral-based commission mechanism, with complex static and dynamic reward structures that exhibit typical pyramid scheme characteristics.

真实案例

• CNR reported in July 2025 as part of a series on the 'cloud farming' economy: Exposing the Metaverse Farm Scam. The platform used the guise of cloud farming and virtual land NFT leasing to attract investors to buy virtual plots, promising high daily yields. According to public reports, investors put in tens to hundreds of thousands of yuan, only to find the platform suddenly unable to process withdrawals and the operators unreachable. The 'metaverse farm' was merely a Ponzi scheme using forged digital asset certificates.
• Panxun.com reported on a 'Joint Computing Center'托管 (custody) dividend Ponzi scheme: The scam used computing power and virtual asset custody dividends as a lure. 110,000 members were attracted by high daily yields and invested in fake asset certificates. The operators forged on-chain transaction data in the background to steal over 100 million yuan, then locked all accounts, stopped withdrawals, and collapsed. The funds were fully transferred, leaving numerous victims with no recourse.
• The Paper previously exposed a 'Cloud Cow' Ponzi scheme: The platform claimed an annual return of 15% for adopting a cow, wrapping itself in the guise of physical agriculture and digital assets, while actually operating through recruitment and fake digital assets. The case involved 560 million yuan. The court verdict ultimately exposed the essence of such 'cloud farming' economies as illegal fundraising disguised as high-yield digital wealth management.

Official Stance

• CNR published a report in July 2025: Exposing the Metaverse Farm Scam disguised as high-tech and metaverse concepts, warning the public against new types of online fraud using virtual asset leasing and high-interest returns as bait, and urging investors to be wary of 'cloud farming' concepts.
• The Paper reported on the sentencing of the 'Cloud Cow' case, with judicial authorities warning the public: Projects promising fixed high returns in the name of digital assets and cloud farming are highly likely to involve illegal fundraising or pyramid schemes. The public should stay away from any capital-guaranteed interest-bearing activities in the name of digital asset buybacks.
• The National Anti-Fraud Center has repeatedly issued warnings via official platforms, reminding the public to be vigilant against new financial scams packaged as metaverse and NFT concepts. Do not trust promises of high daily yields, avoid clicking on unknown app download links, and beware of capital pool collapses that lead to total loss of funds.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Verify Corporate Qualifications: Before investing, check the authenticity of the operating company via the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology website. Focus on verifying registered capital, establishment date, and whether they possess compliant qualifications for blockchain or virtual asset-related businesses. If a company claims to be a large international firm but was registered very recently, blacklist it immediately. Also, verify if shareholders and paid-in capital match the promotional claims, and take screenshots of the public records.
• ✅ Reject High-Yield Lures: Maintain absolute rationality when faced with any metaverse or NFT investment project claiming daily yields of 1% or higher. There is no such thing as a free lunch; any guarantee of capital protection and high interest is a hallmark of illegal financial activities prohibited by national law. Do not blindly increase your principal just because a few small initial withdrawals were successful.
• ✅ Verify On-Chain Asset Authenticity: Do not trust asset data displayed internally on the platform; demand that assets be withdrawn to a mainstream public blockchain wallet for verification. If the platform refuses for any reason, if tokens cannot be transferred across chains, if no compliant contract address can be found, or if there are no transaction records on public blockchain explorers, it is a completely fake digital asset.
• ✅ Beware of Pyramid Mechanisms: Once you discover that project returns are highly dependent on referral commissions and feature a multi-level profit-sharing structure, stop participating and exit private chat groups immediately, regardless of how professional the packaging appears. Preserve evidence such as chat logs, transfer records, and app screenshots, and report them to local police and the Anti-Fraud Center.