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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Blockchain Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Metaverse NFTs Tokens

Walmart is Quietly Preparing a Push into the Metaverse

Not wanting to miss out on the multi-trillion-dollar metaverse market, US-based retail giant Walmart is pressing on with its plans to make and sell virtual goods.

The world’s second-largest retailer (recently outranked by Amazon) is planning to launch a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and create its own cryptocurrency.

New Trademark Applications Show Metaverse Intent

On December 30, Walmart filed several new trademarks that indicate its intent to build a virtual Walmart store within the metaverse and allow users to shop for electronics, home decorations, personal care items, toys, sporting goods, and a range of other products available in Walmart stores, offering its own virtual currency as a means of payment.

Walmart trademark application.

Walmart even has plans to offer a crypto wallet, described in its trademark application as: “Downloadable software for use in managing portfolios of digital currency, virtual currency, cryptocurrency, digital and blockchain assets, digitised assets, digital tokens, crypto tokens, and utility tokens; downloadable software for electronic wallet services; downloadable e-wallets.”

Source: Gerben Intellectual Property

Shopping in Walmart in the Metaverse

Watch the video below to get a glimpse of what shopping in Walmart in the Metaverse might look like:

The buzz around the metaverse went ballistic after Facebook announced it was changing its company name to Meta last October. Since then, big businesses across different sectors have been amping up their own efforts for how they can adapt to exist in a virtual 3D world.

Nike entered the Metaverse after acquiring the virtual sneaker company RTFKT (pronounced “artifact”) and teaming up with Roblox to create an online world called Nikeland, following other big sports footwear names such as Adidas and Asics who had already launched their own NFT collections last year.

Many other big brands are also racing to stake their claim in the metaverse. Last week, Crypto News Australia reported that Samsung will open a virtual store hosted in Decentraland. The metaverse is becoming the future frontier for retailers and promises a whole new world of financial opportunities.

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Blockchain Crypto News NFTs Tokens

Gary Vaynerchuk to Open World’s First ‘NFT Holders Members Only’ Restaurant

Introducing Flyfish Club: the world’s first private dining experience where VIP membership is purchased on the blockchain and owned by the token holder. The premier dining destination in New York City will only be accessible by owners of Flyfish NFT tokens.

NFTs are not just all about trading digital art. Longtime startup investor and NFT enthusiast Gary Vaynerchuk (above) is the first crypto entrepreneur to create a members-only restaurant through Flyfish Club NFTs.

There [are] so many variables that come along with NFT life that people don’t think about, that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. We want to create incredible value for the people that are part of this process.

Gary Vaynerchuk

The team behind the Flyfish club is a company founded by Vaynerchuk – VCR group is a collective of operators and hospitality professionals who say they thrive on creating something innovative for the restaurant industry, something “fresh and fun” that has never been done before.

Adopting NFTs for VIP-only access turns club membership into an asset for those who join the Flyfish community. The NFT membership model creates an extra level of exclusivity for those seeking the high-end fine dining experience.

Flyfish Membership NFTs Sold Out

All Flyfish NFTs that went on sale through the Flyfish website have (unsurprisingly, given Vaynerchuk’s popularity) already sold out. There are two different levels of membership that will allow token holders access to the restaurant when it officially opens its doors in 2023.

The two Flyfish Club membership tiers

1. The Flyfish Token: All 2,650 Flyfish NFTs sold for 2.5 ETH each. Members can access the cocktail room, the restaurant with its outdoor space and skyline views of Manhattan, as well as admission to events (both physical and virtual).

2. The Flyfish Omakase Token: All 385 Flyfish Omakase NFTs sold for 4.25 ETH each. Members can access everything Flyfish Token holders can, plus the “Omakase experience” – dining in the private Omakase Room (with one guest), with meals curated by one of the best sushi masters in the country.

Read more about how it works on the Flyfish club website.

Vaynerchuk is the creator of the NFT project VeeFriends, which offers token holders access to exclusive events “focused around business, marketing, ideas, creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation, competition and of course, fun”.

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Blockchain Crypto News NFTs

Opulous is Providing Artists with Music Copyright-Backed NFTs

The days of signing bad deals with unfair terms are a thing of the past – artists no longer need to sell their souls to greedy record companies in order to get their music out into the world.

Opulous is a new blockchain-based music platform built for creators and investors. It is addressing the biggest challenge facing artists in the music industry today: raising capital.

Opulous allows fans to bankroll their favourite artists by harnessing the power of DeFi. They can also benefit from music sales as part copyright owners, thanks to NFTs.

Opulous brings Decentralised Finance to the music industry, changing how artists access the funding they need and providing a launchpad for the first music copyright-backed NFTs.

opulous.org

Artists Retain 100% of Copyright, Fans Share in Earnings

How will Opulous help artists? Based on historical data, Opulous calculates an artist’s future earnings and offers loans based on that forecast, while allowing the artist to retain 100 percent of their music’s copyright.

By implementing NFTs, Opulous makes it possible for artists to split up the ownership of their music into tokenised shares and offer them directly to fans. This means fans can invest in the artists they love and financially benefit themselves through earnings made from sales.

The Opulous model provides a monetary incentive for fans to help further an artist’s career and encourages them to promote the artists they have invested in. The more successful the artist is, the more money the fan makes, through royalties paid out every month.

Opulous model explained. Source: Opulous

Crypto investors can buy and stake OPUL tokens with the reassurance and trust that their investment is backed by actual real-world assets. Watch the video below to learn more about how Opulous works:

$OPUL Rewards and Staking

After Opulous launches this month, you can stake OPUL to earn more OPUL. The video below explains how the Opulous dashboard works. Read more about how to stake OPUL and earn more OPUL on the Opulous medium.

NFTs are playing a major role in reshaping the music industry. The technology is revolutionising the payment structure for artist royalties and making it possible for artists to receive a larger (and fairer) cut of sales while maintaining ownership of their own brand and product.

Innovative music platforms harnessing the blockchain offer exciting features that directly benefit artists and fans alike: a virtual touring company called Animal Concerts is bringing live music events to the metaverse, and music streaming platform Audius is the largest decentralised consumer blockchain application, with a roster exceeding 100,000 music artists. The future of music looks bright.

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Blockchain Crypto Art Cryptocurrencies NFTs

Display your NFTs in Real Life with a Digital Art Frame by Netgear Meural

Meural digital frames were originally designed for displaying private collections of one’s digital photos. Electronics manufacturer Netgear has now announced its plans to expand Meural Canvas capabilities to include the display of digital artworks (NFTs).

Netgear unveiled the new Meural NFT integration at the tech trade show CES 2022 in Las Vegas, US, and it is currently in beta. The new feature will allow users to connect their MetaMask wallets to the Meural device and access any NFTs they own, enabling digital art collectors to physically display NFTs in a framed “smart” canvas hanging on the wall.

Partnership with Async Art

The Meural online platform is a digital canvas marketplace to which members can subscribe and access thousands of images to display on their Meural digital frames. Joining forces with blockchain-based art platform Async Art, Meural owners will be now be able to showcase programmable NFT artworks. Async allows art enthusiasts to create, collect and trade programmable art. This technology is an extremely exciting innovation for artists and art collectors alike:

Async Art is a new art movement built on the blockchain. Create, collect, and trade programmable art: digital paintings split into ‘layers’, which you can use to affect the overall image. Art that can evolve over time, react to its owners, or follow a stock price is now all possible with programmable art.

my.meural.netgear.com

Watch the video below explaining how Async Art works:

NFT art has grown into a US$11.7 billion industry over the past year. It’s no wonder that hardware companies such as Netgear are cashing in on the opportunity to provide new products to service this fast-growing market. Check out the Meural Canvas II in action in the video below. The frames are already available in stores, although the added NFTs function is not yet released.

Netgear Follows Samsung into the NFT Market

Netgear isn’t the only tech company with eyes on the NFT market. Samsung is also set to release smart TVs with NFT trading capabilities. These new digital display devices with blockchain interoperability will help drive the online digital art movement into the mainstream and real world.

There are already online NFT art galleries in cyberspace, and it won’t be long before real-world art galleries exhibiting NFT art in digital displays such as Meural Canvas become the new normal.

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Blockchain Crypto News DeFi Stablecoins Tokens

Web 3.0 Token ‘Near Protocol’ Up 79% in a Month Amid Terra Partnership

NEAR token has been marching steadily upwards to a new all-time high of US$16.37, the most recent rally on December 22 after NEAR announced it was partnering with leading blockchain protocol Terra Money.

Terra is an open-source decentralised network and the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin is pegged 1:1 to the US dollar, making it an attractive medium of exchange for the DeFi space.

More Collaborations to Come

The integration of UST on NEAR “will be a big step towards growing the Near and Aurora ecosystem”, according to Aiden Knox, founder of NearPad and Rose. “I’m excited to be working closely with the Terra team to not only bring UST to NearPad and Rose, but also for the deeper integrations and collaborative projects this partnership enables.”

This has indeed been bullish news for NEAR as investors have rushed in. By Christmas Eve, NEAR trading volume had spiked to US$1,475,397,417 as the price rallied to a high of $16.15 on December 27. After a week of healthy consolidation, the NEAR chart is as green as a Christmas tree – its impressive price action has seen the token increase 1060.5 percent in value over the past 12 months.

CoinGecko.com

NearPad – NEAR’s DeFi Hub

NearPad aims to be the leading gateway for the DeFi ecosystem on Aurora – an Ethereum Layer-2 built on top of NEAR blockchain. NearPad consists of a DEX AMM, launchpad, and incubator project Rose – a liquidity protocol on Aurora. NearPad offers a product suite to nurture and grow the DeFi ecosystem.

Three weeks ago, Crypto News Australia reported that NEAR Protocol token had soared 48 percent in a week after listing on MoonPay. Terra’s native token LUNA has also had major upside over the past couple of months following Terra’s network upgrade, reaching a new all-time high on December 27 of US$103.34.

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Blockchain NFTs

Mega Mutant Serum #69 Sold For Almost $6 Million, Crazy?

A single non-fungible token (NFT) from the Mutant Serum collection by the Bored Ape Chemistry Club has changed hands for almost US$6 million.

Serum #69, one of 10,000 in the series to be airdropped to all Bored Apes collectors, was purchased on OpenSea for a record 1542.069 ETH (US$5.8 million) on January 2 by @Deepak Thapliyal, an avid Ape collector and CEO of blockchain tech startup Chain.

Deepak took to Twitter to explain himself and his reasoning behind such an expensive investment:

Most Iconic NFT Project to Date

The level of creativity from Yuga Labs (creators of Bored Apes) is pure genius. The Bored Apes Yacht Club roadmap outlined that Bored Apes would be followed by another collection after all BAYC NFTs had been sold. Mutant Apes was always part of the project’s vision. The release of Serums adds an extra layer of uniqueness and generates further excitement among collectors within the Apes community.

Of 10,000 Serums already airdropped, there are only eight Mega Mutant Serums, making Serum #69 extremely rare. Serums are designed for a one-use mutation of a Bored Ape. Applying the mutating feature on the MAYC website, the Serum NFT merges with the Bored Ape NFT to create a new Mutated Ape character with combined features. Yuga Labs has ingeniously invented a way to add a scarcity model that goes beyond the original Bored Ape mint.

The original Bored Apes collection has become one of the most popular NFT projects to date. In September last year, a collection of Bored Apes NFTs sold for US$25 million.

BAYC is a phenomenon that has transformed the way the world sees digital art and NFTs, and has had a huge impact on the rise in popularity of the entire NFT space. Even rapper Eminem has one!

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Crypto News NFTs

Ozzy Osbourne Launches ‘CryptoBatz’ NFTs in Nod to Biting a Bat’s Head Off in 1982

Heavy metal musician Ozzy Osbourne, the self-proclaimed “Prince of Darkness”, has announced his first foray into the world of crypto and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with his debut “CryptoBatz” collection.

Osbourne Has a History with Bats

The CryptoBatz project is a not-so-subtle digital nod to an infamous moment in 1982 when Osbourne bit the head off a bat during a live performance in Des Moines, Iowa, in the US.

CryptoBatz is a fucking mental project for NFT collectors and fans. The design pays tribute to one of my most iconic on-stage moments and is a chance to acquire a rare piece of art history. I love it!

Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne
An example of the NFTs that Ozzy Osbourne fans can purchase. Source: CryptoBatz

I’ve been trying to get in on the NFT action for a while so when I asked Sharon for a Bored Ape for Christmas after several failed attempts of buying my own, and she said no, I decided to create my own.

Ozzy Osbourne

CryptoBatz Give Birth

The collection, which becomes available mid-month and introduces a host of unique and innovative features to the NFT world, is the result of a collaboration between the Prince of Darkness and NFT studio Sutter Systems.

In total there will be 9,666 unique NFT bats, each giving the collector an opportunity to “birth” an additional NFT. This can be done by activating a feature that will allow the user’s purchase to “bite” and mutate with another NFT from their digital wallet.

Known as ‘MutantBatz’, this feature will subsequently allow owners to combine the attributes of two separate projects – making ‘MutantBatz’ a rare offering for NFT collectors. At this juncture, CryptoBatz will be able to “bite” Bored Ape Yacht Club, SupDucks, CrypToadz and a fourth unnamed NFT collection.

CryptoBatz has some NFT collectors excited, suggesting it may soon overtake the likes of so-called blue-chip NFT projects such as CryptoPunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club:

How to Get Involved

A presale for the project is now open through the CryptoBatz discord channel, while a further 2,500 guaranteed CryptoBat presale whitelist passes will be available exclusively through the same channel.

Successful applicants will also be able to mint up to three CryptoBatz per digital wallet, while public minting will open in early February. For more details, visit the official Cryptobatz website.

Ozzy Osbourne
Another example of the NFTs Osbourne fans can purchase. Source: CryptoBatz

Given that 2021 saw the worlds of music and crypto collide, Osbourne’s move into NFTs is perhaps not that unexpected. With this year’s Grammy Awards featuring NFTs as prizes and with more concerts set to take place in the metaverse, 2022 may well be even more groundbreaking a year than the last.

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Blockchain Crypto News Metaverse NFTs Tokens Virtual Reality

Music Concerts in the Metaverse: the New Wave of Adoption?

A new project called Animal Concerts is building a virtual touring company to host virtual live music events in the Metaverse. Through the project, artists can earn up to 50 percent of revenues from both ticket and NFT sales.

It’s time for the next generation of concertgoers and fans to deck out your home theatre, get a VR headset and watch your favourite artists from the comfort of your lounge.

The Animal’s Metaverse will include online concerts, virtual merchandise in the form of digital collectible NFTs, and a community of superfans. Bringing together all aspects of a real-world live event, Animal Concerts will be the hub for delivering online immersive virtual reality experiences for fans like nothing they’ve encountered before. Founder Colin Fitzpatrick says the goal is to become the “Netflix of live streaming concerts”.

With 360-degree cameras on stage, you can use a VR headset to get an immersive experience – like you are dancing on stage with your favourite bands, from your living room anywhere in the world. We want to enable you to enjoy the concert with friends by seeing their avatars.

Colin Fitzpatrick, founder, Animal Concerts

The platform will use cutting-edge technology, setting up multiple 360-degree cameras on stage to feed high-quality footage and audio directly into punters’ VR headsets. Click here to read the full roadmap of features outlined in the Animal Concerts Whitepaper.

A-List Artists to Promote the Metaverse

Animal Concerts will leverage the online fan reach of the A-list artists it promotes by contracting them to help market and push the brand of the platform. “No other crypto will have this many celebrities onboard, promoting us on social media,” its website boasts. “Propelled by these celebs, we will achieve the biggest social following of any cryptocurrency.”

Restrictions on travel and gathering in numbers over the past two years of the pandemic has decimated the revenues of artists who rely on live performance to generate income. Album sales have also been in sharp decline as streaming services continue to replace traditional methods of music consumption.

Round Up Your ANIMAL token

$ANIMAL will be the native token for Animal Concerts. Holding the Animal token will allow users:

  • payment for concert tickets, NFTs and other merchandise on the Animal Concerts marketplace;
  • tiered rewards for early investors;
  • governance, voting and fan interaction, free tickets, limited-edition merch and early access to unique materials and collectibles;
  • discounts for fans purchasing tickets with the ANIMAL token over platforms such as Ticketmaster, etc;
  • participation in online communities of loyal fans; and
  • creation of art, gaming and music NFTs.

At Last, a Serious Challenge to Spotify

Major streaming service Spotify, however, has been criticised for undercutting musicians’ revenues and has upset the industry with its unfavourable artist royalties distribution model. Animal Concerts is set to change this, allowing performers to earn 50 percent of revenues from both ticket and NFT sales. By benefiting the artists directly, Animal Concerts provides a massive incentive for celebrities to entice their fans into the metaverse.

Aiming to launch upwards of 20 virtual reality concerts in 2022 along with NFT collectibles, Animal Concerts has announced a lineup of artists that includes Adele, Arctic Monkeys, Beastie Boys, Backstreet Boys, Bruno Mars, Drake, Ellie Goulding, Fatboy Slim, Frank Ocean, Gwen Stefani, the Killers, Kings of Leon, Miley Cyrus and more.

Teaming up with some of the biggest players in the metaverse, Animal Concerts has partnered with 3D virtual world platform Decentraland, NFT and gaming giant Enjin, and blockchain payment company Circle, among others.

Participate in the IDO

Animal Concerts will be launching on PolkaBridge on January 18. To participate, fill out the registration form for Animal Concerts before January 17 and be sure to have ETH in your wallet:

As a precursor to the Animal Concerts model, in October the US financial services company Republic announced the launch of “Republic Music”, an investment product offering “an entirely new way to create, produce and share royalties from music”.

In an earlier challenge to the dominance of Spotify, Audius, a music streaming platform based on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, partnered with popular Chinese video-sharing and social media app TikTok to create TikTok Sounds. Within 24 hours of the August announcement, the $AUDIO token’s price spiked over 200 percent.

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Blockchain Crypto News DeFi Hackers

Bent Finance Confirms Pool Exploit, $1.6 Million Rug Pull Suspected

Another day, another DeFi rug pull when, on December 20, Bent Finance discovered there had been an exploit of its staking and farming platform.

Everybody Out of the Pool!

Bent Finance immediately called for investors to withdraw their pool funds and announced it had disabled the reward claims while the attack was being investigated, adding it would “make this right” and confirming it would recover all stolen funds from the Bent curve pool:

We recommend you withdraw from the protocol until further notice. We are not going anywhere and will recover from this one way or another.

Bent Finance tweet

Bent Hires White Hats to Decipher Exploit

Bent hired the services of two white-hat hackers to help uncover the details of the exploit. Crypto fraud investigator Joe McGill confirmed that approximately 440 ETH (US$1.75 million at the time of writing) was stolen by the hackers. Full details of the attack are explained on the Bent Finance medium.

DeFi is still in the teething stages of development and attacks such as these are common and frequent. Just two weeks ago DeFi protocol BadgerDAO suffered a similar attack, losing US$120 million in funds.

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Blockchain Crypto News Polkadot

Polkadot’s Parachains Finally Launch, What’s Next?

Five parachains have been awarded slots to be the first to build upon the Polkadot mainnet. The winning projects will lease their parachain slots over the next 96 weeks (almost two years) and will focus on various niches in cryptocurrency, including decentralised finance (DeFi), crypto investments and loans, and smart contracting.

In total, nearly 99 million DOT (worth approximately US$2.4 billion) was deposited by the five top projects. The winning parachains from Polkadot’s first round of auctions are, in order: Acala, Moonbeam, Astar, Parallel Finance, and Clover. 

Parachains Like a ‘Blockchain on Steroids’

Creator and co-founder Gavin Wood has long had a vision for an interconnected blockchain framework, and Polkadot was purposely built with parachains in mind. In 2016, the Polkadot Whitepaper outlined the network’s core features and told of its sharded multichain design. Built to be a network for cross-chain interoperability, Polkadot offers scalability for other chains to build on while sharing the security of the entire network. Click here to read more about Polkadot’s parachains.

Polkadot core developer Shawn Tabrizi breaks down parachains as being “like a blockchain on steroids” via Polkadot’s official Twitter page:

100 Parachain Slots to Launch on Polkadot

Over the next few months, Polkadot will allocate 100 parachain slots to various blockchain projects, although not all will go through an auction process. The next batch of auctions begins on December 23 and will see six more winning projects be awarded slots to launch on the Polkadot main network on March 11, 2022.

Recently DOT reached a new all-time high of US$54.98 after last month’s news of the impending launch of Polkadot’s parachain auctions. DOT is currently ranked #10 on CoinGecko. Across the board, the market has dipped in the past few weeks and $DOT is currently at US$24.50.