Where did the money go?
One of the great MetaZoo mysteries. Using the power of the blockchain, we're able to reconstruct the financial flow of money from public transactions.
USD valued when each amount moved.
Flippers extracted 937.42 Ξ / $1.9M
| TRADER | ETH IN → OUT | REALIZED GAIN | USD |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19.00 Ξ → 39.53 Ξ | +30.72 Ξ | $36,647 | |
| 0.20 Ξ → 27.16 Ξ | +27.06 Ξ | $43,728 | |
| 0.00 Ξ → 24.38 Ξ | +20.87 Ξ | $29,247 | |
| 0.19 Ξ → 15.18 Ξ | +14.69 Ξ | $27,501 | |
| 11.81 Ξ → 17.46 Ξ | +14.55 Ξ | $21,358 | |
| 4.55 Ξ → 16.18 Ξ | +13.60 Ξ | $25,510 | |
| 1.71 Ξ → 13.75 Ξ | +12.04 Ξ | $34,497 | |
| 0.20 Ξ → 11.93 Ξ | +11.73 Ξ | $12,410 | |
| 0.20 Ξ → 10.94 Ξ | +10.74 Ξ | $26,571 | |
| 0.23 Ξ → 10.87 Ξ | +10.64 Ξ | $17,075 | |
| …1,540 profitable wallets total | +937.42 Ξ | $1.9M |
Treasury payout ledger
| DATE | ETH | USD | RECIPIENT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-10-26 | off-chain | $214,200 | Aoki (Sotheby's, off-chain) 0xa6d3…8193Mothman 1/1 sold at Sotheby's (Natively Digital, Lot 52): $170,000 final bid + 26% buyer's premium |
| 2021-12-06 | 104.45 Ξ | $454,098 | insider / distribution 0xccc5…dd11days after the Coin Tokens raise; 60% to Coinbase 44, 10% to Coinbase 3, the rest recycled inside the insider cluster |
| 2021-12-06 | 17.93 Ξ | $57,969 | insider / cluster 0xe693…487cpaid twice (10.56 ETH on 2021-12-06, then 7.37 ETH on 2022-07-27); cashed out to Coinbase 54 and FTX/Blockfolio |
| 2021-12-18 | in-kind | $792 | Aoki (in-kind, 1 Coin Token)sent from the MetaZoo treasury 0x77b94a55 on the MetaZoo x Dim Mak collab release day. priced at the December median 0.20 Ξ (~0.2 Ξ total). |
| 2021-12-24 | 16.00 Ξ | $64,741 | splitter contract 0xd909681frevenue machinery |
| 2022-01-11 | 89.77 Ξ | $290,824 | Aoki (main) 0xe4bb…77c4payment sent 3 days after a celebrity poker night hosted at Aoki home on 2022-01-08, where MetaZoo Coin Tokens were allegedly discussed (tx 0xe8fe9524) |
| 2022-01-11 | in-kind | $12,684 | Aoki (in-kind, 9 Coin Tokens)same day as the 89.77 Ξ payment above. transfers from 0x77b94a55, IDs 994-998/1000-1001/1003-1004. priced at the January median 0.435 Ξ (~3.9 Ξ total). |
| 2022-07-27 | 130.00 Ξ | $212,646 | insider / cash-out 0x37ec…a6a3after the Beasties mint; forwarded via 0x3c3308e3 to Coinbase deposit addresses |
| 2022-07-27 | 7.37 Ξ | $12,055 | insider / cluster 0x08b9…0c27forwarded to an active DeFi-trading wallet where it commingled; no clean single-exchange endpoint |
| 2022-07-27 | 120.60 Ξ | $197,270 | Aoki (hub) 0xa6d3…8193 |
| 2024-01-29 | 9.50 Ξ | $22,017 | insider / shutdown-day 0x2f7e…cc6bMetaZoo shutdown day; sent straight to Coinbase 10 |
in-kind and off-chain rows are not counted in the AOKI total above.
Aoki goes on a manic $8.1M NFT buying spree
| COLLECTION | BOUGHT | HOLDS | USD | ETH |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 CryptoPunks | 7 | 5 | $1,435,751 | 652.79 Ξ |
 Doodles | 7 | 5 | $971,634 | 300.88 Ξ |
 Bored Ape Yacht Club | 7 | 7 | $996,928 | 297.00 Ξ |
 0N1 Force | 12 | 0 | $527,661 | 166.64 Ξ |
 Bored Ape Chemistry Club | 6 | 1 | $479,460 | 140.83 Ξ |
 Moonbirds | 3 | 2 | $295,996 | 99.50 Ξ |
 VeeFriends | 4 | 4 | $170,848 | 65.91 Ξ |
 OpenSea Shared Storefront | 16 | n/a | $154,277 | 55.06 Ξ |
| …757 buys total | $8.1M | 2811.60 Ξ |
ETH is fungible. No specific NFT is claimed to be bought with MetaZoo money.
Insider cash-out
Fresh MetaZoo-funded wallets, no ENS/history. Traced forward, roughly 97% of this ETH cashed out to a centralized exchange (overwhelmingly Coinbase, one branch to FTX); the rest commingled into an active trading wallet.
Treasury money in
Of the 544.00 Ξ the treasury ever took in, ~78% was primary NFT mint sales. The royalties slice reached MetaZoo mostly through OpenSea’s off-chain creator-earnings payout, not a direct on-chain stream.
Treasury money out
Most of what left the treasury went to insider cash-outs (to Coinbase/FTX) and Steve Aoki. The rest is project costs (gas for contract deploys and reward mints/airdrops, plus a few token swaps), money moved between MetaZoo’s own contracts, and a small tail of unattributed transfers to unlabeled wallets.
The USD reconciliation
Because the money left near-immediately (not held through the crash), only $168K was lost to ETH’s price falling between when it arrived and when it left.