Author: José Oramas

José is a journalist and translator with a keen interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

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Crypto News Ethereum Loopring NFTs

GameStop Launches its Own ETH-Based Wallet for NFTs and Crypto

Electronics retail giant GameStop has launched a cryptocurrency and NFT wallet to pivot into the digital assets world. The wallet is an Ethereum-based browser extension – similar to MetaMask – and is available for download at the Chrome Web Store.

Gamestop NFT Wallet

NFT Marketplace to Launch in July

The wallet is self-custodial, allowing users to store and transfer several cryptocurrencies. It will also support NFT trading on GameStop’s upcoming NFT marketplace, expected to launch in early July.

As Ethereum transactions are synonymous with expensive gas fees, GameStop has opted to integrate an ETH layer-2 protocol called Loopring, which leverages ZK (zero-knowledge) technology to make transactions cheaper and faster:

Crypto News Australia reported in March that Loopring had surged over 50 percent after GameStop launched a beta version of its Loopring-powered NFT marketplace.

GameStop Sales Improve Year-on-Year

Despite the overall bearish sentiment in the crypto market, GameStop is still planning to offer crypto products for its gamers. The company’s Q4 financial results revealed it had generated net sales of just over US$6 billion for the fiscal year, compared to $5.090 billion for fiscal year 2020.

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Crypto News Crypto.com Cryptocurrencies Payments

Crypto.com Partners with Shopify to Offer Zero Transaction Fees

Crypto.com has announced that Shopify merchants can now use the exchange to make and receive cryptocurrency payments in their stores.

In a recent blog post, Crypto.com said it would allow all Shopify merchants to accept up to 20 cryptocurrencies as payment using Crypto.com’s Pay feature. These currencies include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Doge, CRO (Crypto.com’s native token), and more:

Zero Settlement Fees After One Month

The exchange will charge zero settlement fees to merchants one month after signing up. After that, only 0.5 percent settlement fees will be applied, much lower compared to 2.5 percent using credit cards. Additionally, Crypto.com’s Pay users can receive up to 10 percent CRO cashback on transactions.

We’re happy to welcome Crypto.com to help Shopify merchants provide an additional fast and convenient way for customers to pay for their online orders. Our growing blockchain ecosystem demonstrates our commitment to supporting merchants with alternative payment methods on their storefronts, helping to further expand what’s possible in commerce.

John S. Lee, lead of Blockchain ecosystem, Shopify

Crypto.com Regaining Ground After Massive Backlash

Crypto.com has been steadily pushing cryptocurrency adoption across the globe, forming new partnerships with companies from different industries so they can enable crypto transactions and payments.

The latest news comes two weeks after the exchange decided to restart its staking rewards program. The company did so after sustained negative feedback from its community after suspending it, causing the CRO token to drop more than 10 percent.

Last month, Crypto News Australia reported that Crypto.com had partnered with South Australia’s Peregrine Corporation to introduce crypto payments in its petrol stations.In January, the global exchange also signed an A$25 million sponsorship deal with the Australian Football League.

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Terra

Crypto Billionaire’s LUNA Tattoo Reminds Him to be Humble in Investing

Galaxy Digital CEO and crypto billionaire Mike Novogratz broke silence on his Terra-LUNA-inspired tattoo a week since the cryptocurrency experienced one of the biggest crashes in DeFi history.

‘A Big Idea That Failed’

After TerraUSD de-pegged from the US dollar – dropping all the way down to nearly zero and dragging its sister coin LUNA with it – Novogratz issued an open letter to his followers, saying: “My tattoo will serve as a constant reminder of [the fact] that venture investing requires humility.”

Novogratz got his LUNA tattoo on January 4, officially declaring himself a “Lunatic” to his 450k followers on Twitter:

A Bitter Learning Experience

In the letter, Novogratz also said the crypto community would learn from these events and mistakes and will focus on building better decentralised infrastructure in future:

Crypto is not going away. The amount of human capital moving into the space isn’t slowing down. The focus on building decentralised infrastructure that allows value and ownership to flow as freely as information on the internet isn’t slowing down

Mike Novogratz, CEO, Galaxy Digital

Many Australians were also bullish on LUNA, as revealed in a Finder survey from March in which 36 fintech specialists expressed their belief that the currency would climb to US$390 by 2025.

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Axie Infinity Crypto News DeFi Gaming

Axie Infinity Suffers Another Hack, Discord Compromised

Popular NFT video game Axie Infinity has suffered another hack, this time on the game’s official Discord channel.

According to an official statement, Axie’s MEE6, a popular Discord bot used for automating roles and messaging within channels, was compromised. The attackers used the bot to add “a fake Jiho account, which then posted a fake announcement about a mint”:

Admins’ Accounts Compromised

The MEE6 bot wasn’t hacked as such – the admins’ accounts were. This allowed the attackers to use the bot to feature messages on the channel. While Axie said the messages had been deleted, it advised users to restart their Discord.

This isn’t the first time Axie Infinity’s Discord has been hacked. A few months ago, users on Reddit reported that their MetaMask wallets were compromised after falling for a fake minting announcement. Users had to delete all connections with Axie Infinity within the MetaMask app:

Not the Best Year for Axie

This hasn’t been the best year for Sky Mavis’ Axie Infinity. A month ago, the studio behind the video game revealed that Ronin – an Ethereum sidechain for Axie Infinity – suffered what is to date the biggest DeFi hack, losing US$625 million.

Discord hacks are not uncommon in the cryptocurrency space. A month ago, Crypto News Australia reported how the Bored Ape Yacht Club Discord servers suffered a phishing scam, causing ApeCoin to drop more than 20 percent.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Crypto News NFTs

Another Bored Ape NFT Sells for $200: Costly Mistake or Tax Evasion?

Another Bored Ape NFT has been undersold, this time for just US$200. The crypto community now believes this has become a common practice to evade capital gains taxes.

A Twitter account that reports Bored Ape NFT sales shared the news of Ape #6462 being purchased for only 200 USDC. This NFT has some of the rarest traits in the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) market, and is currently priced on OpenSea at 101.75 ETH, or US$206,000:

Transaction History Inspires Suspicion

While some in the NFT community say this is just another costly mistake, most believe it was a tax evasion manoeuvre. They based this on the transaction history, which shows the buyer’s account was created this month and that the offer for Ape #6462 was accepted minutes after being listed. It also has been transferred five times between different wallets since its mint date:

Bored Ape #6462. Source: OpenSea

Whether tax evasion or just a mistake, this is not the first time a Bored Ape NT has sold for much less than its original value. A month ago, Crypto News Australia reported that a US$350,000 Bored Ape had been sold for just US$115, raising suspicions in the crypto community.

What was more intriguing is that the owner accepted a bid of only 115 DAI – an Ethereum-based stablecoin – for his NFT. Again, most in the NFT community believed the reason behind this was tax-loss harvesting.

Genuine mistakes occur, however. Five months ago, Twitter handle Manaut.eth made a rookie error by misplacing a decimal point in pricing his NFT at 0.75 ETH instead of 75 ETH.

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Beefy Finance Crypto News DeFi Terra TerraUSD

Beefy Finance Token (BIFI) Spikes 168% Overnight, Benefits From Terra Collapse

BIFI, Beefy Finance’s native cryptocurrency, spiked 168 percent overnight after the protocol upgraded its network and capitalised on TerraUSD’s collapse.

After hitting a low of US$387.80 on May 14, the token is now trading at US$646.67 with 24-hour trading volume up 7 percent.

BIFI/USDT Chart: Source: coinmarketcap.com

BIFI’s price surge can be attributed to three important updates. According to recent tweets, Beefy Finance has upgraded its 12 stablecoin vaults to offer higher yields, added new options in its liquidity pools, and integrated with layer-1 protocol Oasis Network.

Taking Advantage of the UST Aftermath

A collapsing TerraUSD, alongside the 20 percent yield offered by Anchor Protocol for UST deposits, has allowed Beefy Finance to take advantage of the aftermath, introducing new options in liquidity pools and opening new vaults in an attempt to capture idle users and capital:

The integration with Oasis Network enables Beefy Finance to support numerous blockchains including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Matic, and more, making it one of the largest cross-chain protocols in existence.

The protocol also integrated Tron Network’s USDD stablecoin with a 62.5 percent APY (Annual Percentage Yield) for depositors on the quad stablecoin pool:

While the crypto market is experiencing one of the roughest months in its history, decentralised protocols like Beefy Finance are shedding some light on the industry. The opening of new vaults alone attracts fresh liquidity to the protocol by adding support to several assets from different blockchains.

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Crypto News DeFi Terra

DeFi Protocols Report Significant Losses Amid Luna Price Exploit

Two decentralised protocols, Blizz Finance and Venus Protocol, have declared losses due to a LUNA price discrepancy after Chainlink’s price feed for the token got suspended over market conditions.

Attackers Take Advantage of Price Discrepancies

TerraUSD (UST) – the stablecoin issued by the Terra blockchain – suffered a sudden de-pegging last week, causing massive congestion across the DeFi market. Several centralised exchanges such as Binance had to halt LUNA trading amid the stablecoin frenzy.

A few days after the incident, Chainlink – an oracle network that provides real-time data for blockchain companies – decided to suspend the price feed for LUNA, whose price remained at US$0.107 on the platform while the actual market price was $0.01.

According to Blizz Finance, this decision allowed several attackers to deposit millions of LUNA tokens in the $0.107 price range to borrow all the collateral. The protocol stated that it was drained before the team could stop it:

Blizz Finance hasn’t disclosed the amount drained, or if it plans to reimburse affected users.

On the other hand, Venus Protocol issued a statement saying that Chainlink’s suspension of LUNA price updates had resulted in the loss of US$11.2 million for the protocol, which will use its Risk Fund to remedy the shortfall from this event:

Given the continued risks of the LUNA market and in order to eliminate the possibility of further shortfall, the community has asked to suspend the LUNA market, effective immediately. Venus Protocol also has a Risk Fund that will be utilised to remedy the shortfall that resulted from this event.

Venus Protocol blog post

While both protocols have fingered Chainlink as responsible for this incident, one Twitter user stated that it was the fault of negligent developers, adding that Chainlink feeds have a date time associated with the price data which the protocol failed to use:

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Crypto News Stablecoins Terra

Terra Founder Claimed to be Mastermind of Failed Earlier Stablecoin Project, Basis Cash

Do Kwon, founder of the Terra blockchain and the company behind its protocol, Terraform Labs, was allegedly the brains trust of another failed stablecoin project, Basis Cash (BAC).

According to a recent report from US-based crypto journalists Danny Nelson and Sam Kessler, Basis Cash was an Ethereum-based stablecoin meant to be pegged to the US dollar through code and not any actual collateral. The project was abandoned by its creators in early 2021 after it failed to reach parity with the dollar, in fact sinking below US$1:

As Crypto News Australia reported this week, TerraUSD (UST) lost more than 50 percent of its value in a single day after the stablecoin started de-pegging due to a series of significant withdrawals on the Anchor Protocol, a DeFi lending protocol that offers high yields in UST.

Kwon Outed as BAC Co-Founder ‘Rick Sanchez’

Now, new controversy surrounds Kwon as he was one of the two pseudonymous co-founders of BAC, going by the moniker “Rick Sanchez”.

Do Kwon, Terra founder. Source: Forbes

Looking at DefiLlama stats, we can see Basis Cash had a TLV (total locked value) peak of roughly US$175 million shortly before dropping to almost zero in December 2020. BAC’s current market price is 0.007.

Too Little, Too Late for UST

At the time of writing, UST had lost nearly 40 percent of its value in the past week, as per data from CoinMarketCap. The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), stewards of Terra’s UST, is looking to inject US$1 billion to save UST. However, the crypto community remains reticent and thinks it may already be too late for a bailout:

Categories
Crypto News NFTs Scams

Azuki NFTs Collapse 63% Amid Revelations of Founder’s Failed NFT Projects

Azuki NFTs have plunged 63 percent in price after the project’s pseudonymous founder Zagabond revealed his previous involvement in three failed NFT projects – some of them considered rugpulls.

Azukies are currently the sixth-highest-selling collection but now both the project and its founder face a massive backlash from the crypto Twitter community, shortly after Zagabond published a blog post talking about his previous experience building NFT projects:

In the blog post, Zagabond revealed he was behind three NFT projects before Azukies – CryptoPhunks, Tendies and CryptoZunks – all abandoned by their founders after they failed to gain traction.

Zagabond’s approach was to share his previous work and experience in the digital art field but the publication of his post backfired within hours as several users pointed out his previous projects were scams. After the blog’s publication, Azukies went from trading at an average of 20 ETH, or approximately US$49,900, to barely 9 ETH ($21,380).

Zagabond Dismisses Accusations

Zagabond quickly dismissed the accusations, saying he and the other creators delivered everything that was promised and the fact that they had no PMF, or product-market fit (the degree to which a product satisfies a market demand), didn’t mean the projects were rugs:

One Zagabond defender noted that if these projects had delivered their users what was promised, then the creators had no need to continue to work on them:

It seems that consumers still have an expectation that the team and the developers will continue to work on the project in perpetuity. And as a creative, are you indebted to these community members and this project forever?

Zagabond blog post

However, the majority remained reluctant. “No PMF yet you profited millions while buyers were left holding the bag?” one user commented.

Another Twitter user shared on-chain data about the CryptoPhunks creator performing a flashloan transaction of 5,000 ETH on the NFT marketplace LooksRare:

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Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies Ethereum

Bitcoin and Ethereum Now Down More Than 50% from All-Time Highs

The market has shed some blood this month, with the father and mother of all cryptos, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), down more than 50 percent from last year’s all-time highs.

Biggest Crypto Market Sell-Off Since March 2020

In what is the biggest market sell-off since March 2020, the crypto market has been hit with massive outflows following the lead of the US stock market, which also plummeted after the US Federal Reserve moved to raise interest rates by 50 basis points.

Bitcoin is currently trading at US$31,259, an 8 percent drop in the past five weeks. The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH), has followed Bitcoin in its massive sell-off. As per data from CoinMarketCap, ETH has also more than halved its price, currently trading at US$2,354.

BTC chart. Source: Messari
ETH chart. Source: Messari

Thirty-day exchange flows are now almost back to neutral after this week’s sell-off, as shared by market analyst Sam Rule:

Things started to get worse for the market after Terra’s Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) sold more than US$750 million, disguised as an OTC (over-the-counter) loan to trading firms:

El Salvador Buys the Dip Again

While the crypto community doesn’t seem to be bullish on the current market, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, is encouraging people to buy as long as we have the dip. Bukele recently announced that his government had bought 500 BTC at an average price of US$30k per coin, worth approximately US$15.5 million at that time: