Author: Caitlin Carey

Caitlin is a crypto evangelist with a deep curiosity and passion for learning and writing about everything to do with cryptocurrency. She has a background as a performing artist and songwriter and is a digital media enthusiast, with a bachelor degree in Multimedia.

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Australia Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs

Steve Jobs’ Job Application Auction Offers Real vs NFT Comparison

It’s an aged, yellowed piece of paper with printed text from an old typewriter and some scribbly, hard-to-read handwriting on it. But it isn’t just any piece of paper. The item in question is the first-ever job application of Steve Jobs, the man who built the Apple computer empire out of his family home garage in Los Altos, California.

As the worlds of finance and art combine, the demand for NFTs paired with the sale of real-world items is growing at a rapid rate, generating a lot of money and interest.

The physical item auction of the late Steve Jobs’ first job application was hosted on the stevejobsjobapplication.com website by internet entrepreneur Olly Joshi and closed on July 28. The NFT version went on sale separately, through NFT marketplace Rarible.

Physical Copy Achieved Higher Price Than NFT

From a total of 43 bidders who took part in the auction, the winning bid was US$343,000, almost 15 times the sale price of the NFT version, which sold for just US$23,000.

The Steve Jobs’ Job Application from 1973 is a unique piece of history from the exact moment that a dreamer changed the world. It’s a snapshot into the mind of a future genius at a moment where any small deviation from the path ahead would have meant a very different world today. This NFT listing is part of the world’s first Physical vs NFT auction.

rarible.com
Steve Jobs’ job application

The item description for the Steve Jobs’ Job Application NFT listed on Rarible adds: “The motivation behind this auction is to gain a further understanding on where true ‘value’ sits in today’s world: the physical, the digital, or can value co-exist in both? This will be the first ever minted Steve Jobs’ Job Application NFT, created from the physical Steve Jobs’ job application.”

Physical Item Value Increased 1200% in Four Years

Auctioneers Winthorpe Ventures said it was decided to offer the document in two formats in two separate auctions “to test the appetite for digital assets in contrast with physical equivalents”.

Jobs’ application has gone under the hammer on three other occasions, selling for US$18,750 in 2017, $174,757 in 2018, and $222,400 in March. Prior to the latest auction, the physical item’s worth increased more than 1,200 percent over four years. The latest sale of $343,000 saw the value appreciate a further 55 percent in five months.

Crypto News Australia recently reported how Australian artists are creating their own NFT exhibitions, as NFT mania sweeps the country. In June, a highly valuable collection of historic Australian photographs was auctioned as NFTs.

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Coinbase Crypto News Crypto Wallets Cryptocurrencies Ethereum NFTs

New Record: Ethereum Hits 12-Day Winning Streak

ETH is on the move again as it climbs steadily back up towards the $3,000 mark in its longest ever continuous winning streak. According to data from Coinbase, it is up over 43 percent, achieving daily price gains over the past 12 days straight.

ETH daily chart. Source: TradingView

This price gain is leading up to the ETH London Hard Fork which will happen on Aug 5. The upgrade has been long-awaited and highly anticipated following April 15’s Berlin hard fork, which at the time pushed the price of ETH to its all-time high.

The London upgrade is meant to complement the Ethereum 2.0 transition that will change Ethereum from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) model. This may see ether becoming a store-of-value as it moves to become a deflationary asset, like Bitcoin.

Whales Are Making Moves

A fortune in Ethereum valued at over half a billion dollars is on the move as crypto whales relocate their bags of ETH. On July 30, blockchain tracker Whale Alert sighted a series of massive transactions in which large Ethereum holders moved 237,419 ETH in just over 10 hours.

Ether trading volumes have been higher than Bitcoin in the first half of this year as institutions invest heavily. Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap with a current trading volume of over US$300 billion.

For now, HODLers are enjoying the ride:

Crypto News Australia reported last month that a soon-to-be-released documentary on Ethereum, The Infinite Garden, raised 1,036 ETH (US$2.3 million) worth of crowdfunding in just three days.

The funds will help defray production costs for the first feature-length documentary about Ethereum, which includes interviews with creator Vitalik Buterin. It has a cool NFT movie poster too:

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Crypto Exchange Crypto Wallets Crypto.com Cryptocurrencies

Global Crypto Users Reach 221 Million After Rapid 2021 Influx

According to an on-chain market size report by Crypto.com, the number of people involved in crypto has doubled in the first half of this calendar year, reaching over 220 million users by the end of June.

The data compiled by Crypto.com pulled figures from 24 of the largest crypto platforms.

100 Million to 200 Million in Six Months

User numbers doubled in just six months as crypto fever spilled into the mainstream, with the market green across the board and meme coins at the height of their popularity.

From February to May, cryptomania saw the number of users surge to a record 203 million, up from 106 million.  In comparison, it took nine months for the user base to reach 100 million (from 65 million).

The growth we have seen in the first half of 2021 on our platform and industry-wide is very encouraging, and we will continue investing heavily as we pursue our goal of putting cryptocurrency in every wallet.

Kris Marszalek, Crypto.com CEO

As interest in cryptocurrencies continues to grow, Crypto.com is now expanding into the non-fungible token (NFT) market to meet the demand for collectible digital art.

 

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Crypto News Ethereum Gas NFTs

Trader Loses $13,000 Trying to Buy Ethereum Token – Out of Gas Error!

Cats have choked the Ethereum network once again, but this time it isn’t CryptoKittys but Stoner Cats – the hot new NFT collection of feline characters from the much-anticipated animated series Stoner Cats, developed by actor/producer Mila Kunis and guest-starring Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Fans were at the mercy of an Ethereum gas war as 10,420 Stoner Cats NFTs sold out at 0.35 ETH (about US$837) each within 40 minutes. But some fans were left without their money and without a cat. A post titled Some poor guy loses $13k in fees for a failed transaction appeared on reddit, showing how one buyer lost 5.8 ETH (US$13,916) in a single transaction fee trying to buy his Stoner Cat token.

Stoner Cat, Baxter. Source: stonercats.com

Dune Analytics reported that many others suffered the same fate, showing that 344.6 ETH (US$825,000) were lost to failed transactions. According to DeFi news site The Defiant, many users lost trying to mint their Stoner Cats NFTs (20 was the maximum allowed) without manually adjusting the gas limit in Metamask. Those whose bids were placed earlier didn’t have enough gwei to pay for the entire transaction, which caused the transactions to fail.

Once again the Ethereum network could not meet the high demand of a popular release, as too many users caused gas prices to be pushed higher, resulting in failed transactions and lost funds to exuberant gas fees.

It’s possible that Stoner Cat developers failed to anticipate the demand for the project and set the minimum gas price too low. This is something that needs to be considered moving forward for fundraising efforts such as this, to avoid leaving supporting fans out of pocket.

Stoner Cats is the first TV show of this kind to be entirely funded by NFTs. The show raised over US$8 million on Wednesday through the sale of the Stoner Cats NFTs. The production team – headed by known crypto lover Ashton Kutcher and wife Mila Kunis – plans to release a further 3,000 NFTs per episode.

The series’ first episode, “Stoned Awakening”, is set to premiere today, July 30. Watch the Stoner Cats trailer on Youtube here.

How ETH Gas Fees Work 

When a transaction fails on the Ethereum network, users are still charged. This is a common complaint from frustrated users of the biggest blockchain in DeFi. Etherscan will provide an estimate of how long it will take for a transaction to go through, but when the network is overloaded users may experience the dreaded processing loop, eventually resulting in the status: Fail.

The insanely expensive gas fees on the Ethereum network have seen many opting into other blockchains such as the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), where fees are much lower. In February, ETH gas fees hit all-time highs of up to US$20,000.

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Bitcoin Blockchain Crypto News

New Record: $15.3 Billion Worth of BTC Moved in One Single Block

A Bitcoin whale has moved 2 percent of Bitcoin’s total supply, worth US$15.3 billion, in a record single transaction, pushing the price up 8 percent to break through the key resistance level of US$40k for the first time in over a month.

The one-of-a-kind transaction of 400,519.2286 BTC was processed as an entire block on the Bitcoin network. It was recorded on Blockchain.com as Block 692828: “This block was mined on July 27, 2021 at 11:58 AM GMT+10 by Poolin – it currently has 205 confirmations on the Bitcoin blockchain.”

Documenting Bitcoin confirmed the milestone transaction on Twitter:

How Bitcoin Blocks Work 

The blockchain is a shared public ledger on which the entire Bitcoin network relies. All confirmed transactions are included in the blockchain. It allows wallets to calculate their spendable balance so that new transactions can be verified, ensuring they’re actually owned by the spender. For more, watch how blockchain technology works here.

The sea is rising again. After almost a decade, a wallet containing 791 BTC became active again earlier this year. The Satoshi era wallet drew the attention of Whale Alert by making a transaction worth over US$21 million. A few months earlier, a Bitcoin Whale moved A$1 billion of BTC into storage.

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Binance Coin Crypto News DeFi Ethereum Hackers

THORChain Suffers Another Attack: $8 Million Held, Hacker Wants 10% Bounty

THORChain has been once again schooled by hackers who managed to take a further US$8 million in this latest attack, bringing the total losses to US$13 million for the month. The cross-chain crypto token exchange platform manages US$100 million in funds.

The “helpful” hackers were kind enough to leave a note explaining THORChain’s weaknesses and cautioned that the result could have been far more damaging had they gone for the vault (BTC, ETH and BNB). They added:

“Do Not Rush Code That Controls 9 Figures”

About the Exploit

THORChain stated that a hacker (or hackers) deployed a custom contract that was able to trick its Bifrost Protocol into receiving a deposit of fake assets, duping the network to mistakenly process refunds of real assets back to the hacker. The breach was a highly “sophisticated attack” and the hacker has requested a bounty of 10 percent of the funds stolen for services rendered.

The network has responsibly ceased operating until the code can be reviewed and deemed secure before launching again. A harsh and expensive lesson, perhaps, but events such as this are part and parcel of DeFi (decentralised finance) as the space is still in its infancy in the untamed wild west.

There were really only two options. Launch and accept the risk of issues, or not launch and stay in the 90 percent complete audit-review cycle for another six months. Both are difficult.

Thorchain spokesperson

Earlier this month, THORChain lost US$4.9 million in Ethereum drained in a previous attack. Daniel Kim, head of capital markets at Maple Finance, said: “There’s a constant battle for these smart contract securities firms to keep up with hackers. That said, the DeFi industry is still nascent … these issues lead to solutions.”

The price of $RUNE fell 17 percent on the day as a result. It had been trading as high as US$20 in May, though the current value is bouncing around the US$4 mark, down over 80 percent from its peak.

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Crypto News NFTs

12-Year-Old Whiz Kid Makes 80 ETH in 12 hours from Weird Whales NFT Drop

Benyamin is not your average schoolkid. You could say he was born into the NFT business. Now 12, he has been learning to code since he was five, his dad is a programmer who is into crypto, and he is inspired by CryptoPunks.

Weird Whales creator Benyamin goes by the handle @ObiWanBenoni on Twitter and has built an impressive community of over 4,000 followers. Reaching out to the Boring Bananas team, Benyamin received mentorship from Vee who helped him develop the python script to put together traits for the Weird Whales collection and set up the project, supporting him all the way up to the launch.

Benyamin’s proactivity and hard work have paid off handsomely, with the Weird Whales NFT launch raking in over US$1.2 million (600ETH) in the first 48  hours. Its creator effectively made 80ETH in the first 12 hours of the drop.

You can check out the Weird Whales collection on OpenSea. Weird Whales is the second NFT collection by Benyamin, and it was completely sold out.

Weird Whales is a collection of NFTs – unique digital collectibles, swimming on the Ethereum blockchain; 3350 whales have been programmatically generated from an ocean of combinations, each with unique characteristics and different traits. Own a Weird Whale and surf the crypto revolution.

opensea.io/collection/weirdwhales
One of Benyamins Weird Whales

How Are NFT Collections Created?

The wonderful thing about the NFT community (as with crypto and open-source coders) is the sharing spirit and transparency of its members. Benyamin helpfully tweeted a 10-step breakdown on how he went about creating the Weird Whales NFT collection:

NFT collectibles are created using python to randomly help generate features that contribute to the value of each NFT. Vee from @BoringBananasCo recently tweeted a how-to guide:

NFTs are more than just expensive JPGs. They have become a membership card into a cool kids’ club. It is a way for crypto and art lovers to become part of a community that supports and promotes each other. Owners are not only trading these online collectibles like baseball cards but are collecting them as rare digital art.

Interestingly an underground movement has begun among NFT collectors, where is it has become the fashion to feature the NFT images as their own avatars, adopting them to represent their online identities and show off their ownership of the unique artwork proudly.

Last month, a world record price of US$11.8 million was paid for a single CryptoPunk. The likes of Benyamin might just have upped the ante. And he’s not the only wunderkind taking the crypto community by storm. Also last month, Crypto News Australia reported on 13-year-old Indian programmer Gajesh Naik, who designed a DeFi protocol that now manages around US$1 million in cryptocurrency.

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Binance Binance Coin

Binance “Burns” 1.3 Million BNB – What Does This Mean?

Almost $400 million worth of tokens have been burned in Binance’s 16th quarterly BNB token burn, as per the whitepaper.

Just under 1.3 million BNB coins have now been removed from circulation since the burn took place on July 19.

What Is Token Burning and What Are the Implications?  

Binance’s quarterly burn is a deflationary mechanism. Every three months it destroys coins to ensure the asset remains scarce and help the price of BNB go up. Currently, the value of burned coins is equal to 20 percent of Binance’s profit during the previous quarter.

The burn included 5,163 BNB as part of the Binance “Pioneer Burn Program”, where the exchange aims to compensate users who mistakenly lost their BNB by accidentally sending them to smart contracts from which the tokens cannot be recovered.

BNB is the fourth-largest digital asset, with a market capitalisation of roughly US$47.5 billion.

Binance’s 15th BNB quarterly burn, worth over $500 million, was in April.

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Bitcoin Trading

Is the Drop in Bitcoin Shorts Evidence of Bears Retreating?

Sitting below 55 percent from its peak, Bitcoin has been stuck tracking sideways for the past three months but is managing to maintain a crucial psychological resistance level above US$30,000 as bulls and bears squabble over whether or not the bull market is over.

While short-sellers have been having all the fun recently, it is savvy long-term retail investors who have been accumulating BTC at prices that can only be seen by Bitcoin believers as bargain-basement specials.

On-chain analyst Willy Woo predicts that Bitcoin could soon resume its bullishness: 

I’m expecting price to break from its bearish sideways band in the coming week followed by a recovery to the $50k-$60k zone before some further consolidation.

Willy Woo

As Woo explains, “Coins are moving away from speculators to long-term investors (strong hands) now at a rate unseen since February when price propelled from $30k to $56k.”

Spot exchange net flows on a two-week moving average. Source: Willy Woo Newsletter

On July 17, Woo tweeted: “It’s retail that drives Bitcoin bull markets. When they stop buying, that’s a bear market warning. They haven’t stopped buying.” From his survey, it seems that bull sentiment has the majority, albeit not by much.

Others Expecting a Bitcoin Spike

Scott Melker, a popular trader and Bitcoin analyst, says that each time the BTCUSDSHORTS positions on trading exchange Bitfinex drop, it leads to an increase in Bitcoin spot prices. He too predicts this pattern will soon see a bullish reaction, and in that he’s not alone.

As Crypto News Australia reported earlier this month, much of Bitcoin’s 2020 gains were erased in the three-month period to July as its price slid 43 percent amid FUD relating to China and environmental concerns.

Also earlier this month, HODLers enjoyed gains for the first time in weeks as BTC surged more than 5 percent overnight. This was largely attributed to whales accumulating over 60,000 coins in a single day, worth US$2.7 billion.

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Banking Crypto News

Debanked Cannabis Companies Are Turning to Crypto

Wholesale cannabis companies are looking to crypto to solve some of the headaches of doing business in an industry where quality matters and trust is a must.

The red tape cannabis companies have to deal with makes it increasingly difficult to do business in general, but more specifically relating to moving money, or receiving financing, it is hard for them to find banks to work with due to the perceived regulatory risk. Although the legal sale of marijuana is permitted in more than 20 states in the US, weed is still illegal federally.

The technology blockchain brings can help solve problems in this billion-dollar industry. These include cross-border payments and banking restrictions, but crypto is not just about exchanging currency. People want to know where their product is coming from and need to be able to trust its quality.

The Benefits of Seed-To-Sale Tracking via Blockchain

Like a farm-to-fork-style business model for the food industry, corporate cannabis is adopting a seed-to-sale model of its own, with the help of blockchain. One of the main advantages of blockchain is that it allows secure record-keeping without the need of a trusted third party.

But if you think US regulator the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) is hard on crypto innovation, in particular when it comes to newer cryptocurrencies, there are even harsher levels of legislation for those dealing in cannabis.

Los Angeles-based pot startup Paragon launched its own blockchain-based cryptocurrency, Paragon Coin (PRG), and a marijuana-friendly workplace in Hollywood called ParagonSpace. Paragon was audited by the SEC and ordered to pay a US$250,000 fine after being accused of trading its PRG token as an unregistered security. Paragon denies PRG was a security and chose to pay the fine without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings.

The company maintains that it uses blockchain to ensure a secure system for monitoring the growth and shipping of cannabis, referred to in the industry as seed-to-sale tracking. Developing such a system as an industry standard is the goal of many blockchain cannabis companies.

Cannabis-specific cryptocurrency DopeCoin’s rebranded DigiGreen aims to serve up real-world solutions to selling weed, providing a payment gateway to a range of other blacklisted industries.

Cannabis Industry Needs to Cut Out the Middleman

The daily interactions involved in a cannabis company’s business could be much more efficiently handled by adopting a new system using crypto and cutting out the middleman. US software company Red Hat Inc’s Gordon Haff says these systems are ready to be implemented today. The delay, he says, is “getting everybody in the ecosystem to agree to use a common platform”.

The cannabis industry is still fighting discrimination and is waiting for governments to grant it equal rights to operate as any other legitimate business can. And crypto is still waiting for fear, uncertainty and doubt to dissipate for it to become more widely understood and accepted as the invaluable tool it is.

From a weed store point of view, to accept payment in crypto, it is presently too complicated both for staff and customers. Crypto is not yet widely adopted enough for it to be helpful for in-store purchases.

The world is not ready to pay in digital currency on a mass scale. The technology is too new and does not provide the average consumer with enough benefits to want to use a digital currency over traditional cash or credit card.

Adam Howell, DopeCoin founder

Blockchain technology offers efficient and sophisticated record-keeping processes for cannabis businesses transacting with each other within their industry (or for any business in any industry, for that matter).

Cannabis and Crypto Have Much in Common

Cannabis and crypto are kindred spirits. It has taken decades for the health benefits of medical marijuana to be recognised and for the industry to become legally corporatised.

As both sectors continue to grow, they face legislative hurdles. Banks are going to have to become more open to doing business with corporate cannabis and crypto or they will fail to profit from two of the world’s most rapidly expanding industries.