Ben Stokes responds to fans’ criticism after NFT announcement

"If you put put 6 months of research into this space like me..."

Ben Stokes has hit back at critics following his announcement that he had been made an 'honorary ape' by the 'Antisocial Ape Club', accompanied by an image of a brand new NFT (non-fungible token). Briefly, let's just recap what that means. Like many high profile athletes including John Terry and Rio Ferdinand, Stokes has recently been promoting NFTs in the form of digital art, often focused around imagery of apes, which cost vast sums of cryptocurrency. If you're looking for more detail, I'd recommend a YouTube explainer. So, on Sunday afternoon Stokes posted a tweet, saying: "Can’t believe that @ASAC_NFT have made me a Honorary Ape, crazy man thanks to all the team," followed up by some emojis and the below picture (which, you'll note, anyone can save and use, like we have, despite not technically 'owning' the token.) https://twitter.com/benstokes38/status/1492917373912944642 Many of the cricketer's followers then proceeded to respond with scepticism and outright criticism for their former hero promoting a project that includes significant financial risks due to the volatility and sizeable sums of money involved. "Very disappointed that you're getting involved in these scams," was one such reply. https://twitter.com/Chiefinho/status/1492917684433997825?s=20&t=OrGQ6ysc92CbbiUb0gqo8w In response to the criticism, the all-rounder wrote: "If you think I'm quote "scamming people" by saying thanks to a company for creating something that I MYSELF thinks (sic) is cool then you got it SOOOOO WRONG ... What I will say is, if you put six months of research into this space like me you would probably think different." https://twitter.com/benstokes38/status/1492928055907655686 This did little to appease his disgruntled followers, though, with many laughing at the idea that he spent six months researching NFTs only to come to the conclusion that they are, in fact, good. "I've spent six months researching pyramid schemes and have discovered they are okay when you are at the top of them," one user sarcastically wrote. https://twitter.com/sussexstokie/status/1492935288322240512 https://twitter.com/CharlieHerb9/status/1492930315807035393