In September 2021, Neopets attempted to enter the budding Non-fungible Token market with a project called the "Neopets Metaverse", predictably sparking major backlash from the Neopets fandom citing pre-existing criticisms and negative stigmas surrounding NFTs. However, much less predictable were the string of controversies that followed, which involved using the fansite Dress to Impress to make their NFTs (notably signified by one of the tokens having a glitch only present on Dress to Impress and not the official Neopets site), promotion of an R-rated NFT collection titled "Horny Hedgehogs", banning the word "gay" from their Discord server but permitting homophobic slurs, portraying those opposed to NFTs as the "Soyjak" meme, and in secret planning to get the main game developers to implement long-requested features so fans would "shut up" about the NFT project.

When the project first spread, the Neopets Twitter account stated in a direct message that it was a scam, putting doubt on its legitimacy, but the main brand would later would endorse the project. The most infamous endorsement came when the winner of an art contest ended up being an anti-NFT protest image, which they removed and - after being called out - subtly censored it by compressing it so hard that it couldn't be read without extremely close observance.

After two years, Neopets ultimately announced in July 2023 that it would be completely shuttering the Neopets Metaverse project after former CEO of the Metaverse division Dominic Law brokered a "management buyout deal", and that the game would no longer have any cryptocurrency or NFT elements.