The Pixl Page & Nano Frames Fraud
Read below on how the founder of Pixl Page and Nano Frames; defrauded the Cardano Community out of hundreds of thousands of $ADA
Exposing A Giant Fraudulent Scheme
Drewzi (@gainsgod) and The Cardano Times (@TheCardanoTimes) have exposed Captain Nano, founder of Nano Frames (@NANO_Frames) and (@pixl_page); as a fraudster and serial con artist stealing a significant amount of $ADA from the #CardanoCommunity by failing to have proper business acumen, making a series of suspicious missteps, abandoning the projects, and refusing to provide refunds for those defrauded.
The team made a series of questionable decisions that seemed to have failed their business, their customers, and their loyal supporters from the very beginning. Let’s start from the beginning:
Nano Frames
Launched in 2021, Nano Frames made waves in the Cardano Community with a unique physical product designed to cater to the thriving Cardano NFT space amidst the initial NFT frenzy. They sold the community on the vision of physical electronic NFT frames that allowed owners to display their Cardano NFTs through a physical frame within their home or establishment. It was a unique idea that captivated the community, and that is precisely when it all began to fall apart.
Nano Frames initially conducted a pre-sale back in 2021 for the Physical Nano NFT Frames that allowed owners to display their NFT through a physical frame. However, their team was negligent and lacking in the capacity to deliver on the promises made to the pre-sale entrants.
To start off, Captain Nano stated that the team conducted the pre-sale despite lacking the proper certifications to convert the $ADA gained in revenue to fiat because they felt they should launch the project as soon as possible because of the hype for such a unique product.
Additionally, the team stated they used a manufacturer from China that was extremely difficult to work with due to the Covid-19 Pandemic Lockdowns which were extremely harsh in China at the time; calling it a “global logistical nightmare” yet refused to switch suppliers.
The team was nowhere near prepared to ship out the products advertised during their pre-sale lacking a reliable manufacturer, limited knowledge of how difficult it was to ship the products internationally, and lacking a variety of “certifications” needed to operate soundly.
Furthermore, Captain Nano admitted to sending over $100,000 in small amounts with the money he raised through Nano Frames to an old business associate and friend named Daniel who joined the team, allegedly for the purpose of having Daniel pay the manufacturer on behalf of the business.
Daniel then proceeded to attempt to withdraw the entire $100,000 from his bank account in a single withdrawal, prompting a swift freeze on his accounts given these types of withdrawals are extremely suspicious in the financial legacy system and raise numerous red flags.
This left the team allegedly without a majority of the funds obtained from the presale, with Captain Nano describing Daniel as an “idiot” for the “tricky situation” he caused for the project. For someone described as an elite businessman with extensive knowledge, he lacked basic common sense as he attempted to extract $100,000 from his account immediately.
In February of 2022, Captain Nano allegedly reached out to some “capital management firms in Switzerland” to try to obtain the company’s funds from the frozen accounts. During these discussions, the firms allegedly warned that a withdrawal of that magnitude could take months to dispute and recover. Furthermore, they stated that the Cyber Crime Unit in Germany could also get involved given the funds were sent to the account from a centralized cryptocurrency exchange.
Towards the end of February, Captain Nano stated that Daniel miraculously was able to free up just $15,000 of the $100,000 frozen in the account due to this allegedly being the smallest transaction Captain Nano had sent to Daniel. The team then ordered the first batch of Nano Frames from the manufacturer in China although running significantly short on the funds necessary to satisfy the promises made to all pre-sale holders.
Towards the beginning of March, the team allegedly suffered from a “global logistical nightmare” with lockdowns in China impacting the supplier’s ability to ship out their frames, as well as the requirements for shipping “hazardous goods” given they were electronic devices. Captain Nano stated that he had no “prior notice” or awareness that such lockdowns in China were so rampant and impactful yet acknowledged it as a global issue companies across the world suffered from.
It wasn’t until May that the team was finally notified that the products had been shipped out by the supplier in China, which would take a considerable time to reach the Nano Frames team given the tedious process to ship electronic projects internationally in bulk.
However, in June; Captain Nano was allegedly informed by Daniel that “Customs” had flagged this shipment for lacking proper certifications from the manufacturer. Per Captain Nano’s own public statements, the manufacturer allegedly also sent the wrong product in the first place on top of lacking the proper certifications; and according to Captain Nano, causing all of those products totaling $15,000 to be destroyed due to the shipping costs allegedly surpassing the total price of the goods.
The team also immediately began developing another product for the event as Captain Nano described it, “shit really hits the fan.” This ran as far back as early February, as soon as the money was allegedly frozen in Daniel’s account. For months as they claimed to lack the funds raised in the pre-sale to deliver the products to those who had purchased one, they somehow built a Cardano-based application with enormous developmental feats with no real funds allegedly available during this entire time.
That product was Pixl Page.
*Disclaimer: The public statements from Captain Nano The Cardano Times is consistently referring to in this article are based on his public statements made in a publicly recorded Twitter Space still available to the public today on Twitter. You can listen to the entire 1 hour Twitter Space yourself to achieve full clarity on the situation where he admits to virtually everything in the link attached here.”
Pixl Page
Pixl Page was created by the Nano Frames in February of 2022 as an answer to the team’s lack of funding to satisfy their financial obligations to their customers in the presale, with Captain Nano stating it was created to deliver a product to the community while simultaneously raising funds to allegedly refund dissatisfied supporters and deliver to those who still desired their Nano Frames.
The application was designed to operate as the digital extension of Nano Frames, offering those who could not afford the $1,000 price point of the physical frames an opportunity to still showcase their NFTs in a unique fashion. In some ways, it was an amateur version of creating a sense of social media through an NFT platform offering users ways to express themselves through their holdings and showcase them to the world.
The team conducted an NFT mint dubbed “CURATOR Genesis” for Pixl Page due to the necessity to obtain funding for the purchase of the Nano Frames they were obligated to provide the pre-sale entrants. The team still allegedly failed to get the remaining $85,000 from Daniel and they already lost $15,000 due to their allegedly unlicensed, incompetent, and ignorant manufacturers.
The CURATOR Genesis mint offered supporters of the project “lifetime access to the premium features of pixl.page” where users can “create custom websites with your NFTs, build your Web3 profile, and connect with others.” This all was promised and delivered with allegedly no funding as the team struggled through what was frequently described as a “nightmare” to do right by the early supporters of Nano Frames, and by extension; Pixl Page.
The team did conduct the mint successfully; selling over 2,800 NFTs at a price tag of 80 $ADA each for a total of 220,000 $ADA, with expenses totaling 54,000 $ADA for Ada Anvil’s minting services and $30,000 USD for loans that were taken out to develop Pixl Page. In totality, the team netted a profit of around $50,000 USD which was noticeably far short of the $100,000 the team had allegedly lost; preventing them from further developing Pixl Page without abandoning their earliest Nano Frame supporters.
The Pixl Page/Nano Frame team then decided to use most of the $50,000 in profit to purchase as many frames as possible from the manufacturer, but instead of shipping them out to the pre-sale supporters; the team decided to sell them at CNFTcon at discounted prices in hopes to turn an additional profit and find some big investors or VC funding for their financially insolvent project. The team spent thousands of dollars (allegedly only personal funds) for travel accommodations and a “pretty big” booth to sell these frames, and surprisingly admitted to it being a failure for their project. They also took a road trip around the country.
To top it off, the team decided to do an additional mint allowing users to mint Pixl Links for their own personal profile links for 15 $ADA per link, similar to adahandle’s NFTs. The exact figures surrounding how much they have made from that mint are unknown, but the links are still mintable today on their website and were never used to refund or ship out the Nano Frames to the pre-sale supporters.
Captain Nano claimed he forced the aforementioned Daniel to sign a document legally binding himself to be indebted to Captain Nano, Pixl Page, and Nano Frames for the financial predicament he had allegedly put the businesses in. Payment terms were set forth from some time around the middle of 2022 until November of 2022, but Captain Nano claimed Daniel had missed all of these payment deadlines and he had decided to confront him by allegedly driving over to his house.
When he arrived at Daniel’s home, he had only been able to speak with his wife apparently who claimed she had not seen Daniel in quite some time; implying that he had gone into hiding after owing such a significant amount of money. From this point forward, he pursued legal action against Daniel in the German Courts demanding Daniel pay the sum he is entitled to return immediately or face legal consequences.
Daniel continued to reject these legal demands, and he was forced to pursue further legal actions attempting to seize all of Daniel’s assets and house to obtain the sum owed to the businesses. Unfortunately, Captain Nano had stated that the guy allegedly “was fu#$ed” and had no assets to his name whatsoever. This was stated by the very man who was close friends with Daniel and hired him to join the Nano Frame team, entrusting him with over $100,000 of the company’s money simply to suspiciously facilitate a transaction that could have easily been handled by the business.
During this time around November through December, the team also continued to fail to ship out any frames to the pre-sale supporters or issue any refunds whatsoever and; once again attempted to sell the Nano Frames they did have through another discounted sale on their website instead of sending them out to their earliest supporters. The team stated this was an attempt to get even more funding to buy more frames for the pre-sale supporters once they sell out their initial inventory. However, the winter sale failed and the team issued refunds for all of the sales during this promotion.
Fast Forward To 2023
Early supporters of Nano Frames from the project’s presale are still yet to be issued a refund, with Captain Nano responding to Drewzi’s requests for a refund by stating they would be issued after the project could obtain VC funding; implying he was going to use VC funding to provide refunds to customers who have been waiting for years rather than actually investing it into the business. That VC funding never came, and the refunds didn’t either. The last communication from Captain Nano regarding the refunds was back in March, but since then; he has gone completely radio silent and seemingly abandoned both projects.
It is now the end of July of 2023, the Nano Frames are seemingly unpurchaseable as of writing, and the Pixl Page website has been undergoing maintenance for weeks on end, and there has been no communication from Captain Nano in over “4 months. Although the team stated they had never had any ill-intentions for the project, they abandoned their earliest supporters who invested thousands of dollars in their vision and product, and made a series of disastrous mistakes that cost a lot of people their valuable time and money.
It’s a story I grow tired of writing as it occurs repeatedly.
It’s a story that’s growing far too common in our industry.
Let me know your thoughts on the story.
Signing Off,
Max
7/28/2023
*Disclaimer: The public statements from Captain Nano The Cardano Times is consistently referring to in this article are based on his public statements made in a publicly recorded Twitter Space still available to the public today on Twitter. You can listen to the entire 1 hour Twitter Space yourself to achieve full clarity on the situation where he admits to virtually everything in the link attached here.”
