Author: Phil Stafford

Phil is a long-standing Australian journalist with specialised experience in business, finance, travel and popular culture.

Categories
Crypto News Metaverse NFTs Sports

Puma Enters Web3: Renamed Puma.eth on Twitter and Partners with Cat-Themed NFTs

Having bought a decentralised .eth URL from the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), Puma has duly followed rival sports brands Nike and Adidas into the metaverse. As a full signal of intent, it has even renamed itself puma.eth on Twitter.

Puma’s new Twitter profile

Puma Partners With Gutter Cat Gang … More to Come?

Fuelling rumours of associated partnerships, Puma has also purchased a catalogue of cat-related NFTs, which include Cool Cat #32 (bought for 14 ETH, roughly US$36,000 at the time of writing); a Gutter Cat worth about US$20,000; a pair of pudgy pussies from the CatBlox Genesis collection, and a Lazy Lion.

As for the German multinational’s move into the metaverse, the company is looking to hire a “Digital Culture Manager” and an associate creative director, both positions listing knowledge of the metaverse as a prerequisite. As the ad on Puma’s website specifies, candidates are required to have an “understanding of web3 including NFTs, gaming, metaverse, cryptocurrencies, and DAOs”.

Puma Debuts at #13 on the .ETH Leaderboard

At the time of writing, Puma ranks 13th on the .eth Leaderboard, which lists the most followed Twitter accounts with .eth names. Leading the pack are parishilton.eth and shaq.eth, owned by socialite heiress Paris Hilton and former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, respectively.

Besides Puma, another major corporation sporting an .eth domain is beer brand Budweiser, which bought the Beer.eth domain name for 30 ETH (around US$100,000 at the time) in August last year.

Categories
Crypto News Crypto Wallets DeFi Ethereum Hackers

Journalist Reveals How She Identified 2016 DAO Hacker Who Stole 3.6 Million ETH

American crypto journalist Laura Shin, backed by research from blockchain surveillance firm Chainalysis, claims to know the identity of the hacker who drained millions of dollars’ worth of ETH from The DAO in June 2016.

Shin accuses Austrian programmer and former TenX CEO Toby Hoenisch of masterminding the US$60 million hack that precipitated the loss of 3.6 million ETH, worth close to US$10 billion on today’s exchange rate.

Hoenisch Denies the Allegations

Hoenisch has already denied Shin’s allegations, reportedly telling the former Forbes senior editor that her “statement and conclusion [are] factually inaccurate”.

The DAO was one of the world’s first decentralised autonomous organisations, serving as an open-source venture fund platform for crypto projects. It had raised 12.7 million ETH, worth around US$150 million at the time, from crowdfunding.

When it was hacked in 2016, nearly a third of The DAO’s funds were drained. Shin and Chainalysis tracked the movement of the stolen funds, which she says led her to Hoenisch.

“We identify the apparent hacker – he denies it – by following a complicated trail of crypto transactions and using a previously undisclosed privacy-cracking forensics tool,” Shin writes, revealing the tool as having been supplied by Chainalysis.

How the Hack Was Engineered

Shin says that whoever hacked The DAO swapped the stolen ETH for BTC and then sent the latter to a Wasabi wallet, which was used to scramble BTC transactions in a process called “mixing”. But Chainalysis was able to “de-mix” the transactions and trace them to four different exchanges.

Evidence revealed someone had exchanged the BTC for the privacy coin Grin, which was withdrawn to a non-custodial Grin node called “grin.toby.ai”. The name “toby.ai” had been used by Hoenisch on various social media accounts and was one of his email addresses, Shin wrote. The IP address hosting that node also hosted another node called “TenX” – the name of Hoenisch’s former company.

According to Shin, Hoenisch was aware of The DAO’s code and had written blog posts warning of potential hacks. Shin breaks down the 2016 exploit in forensic detail in her new book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, published this week.

In December, BadgerDAO became the latest DeFi protocol to be hit by hackers, who siphoned US$120 million worth of cryptocurrencies.

Categories
Bitcoin Mining Blockchain Crypto News

Intel Unveils New Energy-Efficient Bitcoin Mining ASIC

Intel has shared tech details of its first-generation “Bonanza Mine” (BMZ1) blockchain accelerator chip, revealing it is already taking orders, while also unveiling a new 3,600-watt mining rig with 300 BMZ1 chips on board.

Both show-and-tells took place at this year’s International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), which runs until February 26 in San Francisco, US.

BMZ1 Chip Enables System Hashrate of 40 TH/s

The BMZ1 chip is specifically designed for mining bitcoin, so stacking 300 of them into a 3,600-watt mining rig produces a machine with a system hashrate of up to 40 terahashes per second (TH/s).

Intel also claims its miner’s underlying BMZ1 chips are the cleanest and most powerful on the market, further fuel for a growing advocacy movement that professes bitcoin mining supports renewable energy. Incidentally, in 2018 Intel won a patent for an energy-efficient bitcoin mining process.

Intel’s BMZ1 has already received several high-profile preorders, notably from Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block (formerly known as Square) and cloud mining pool Argo Blockchain.

BMZ2 Chips Already On Order

There’s also evidence to suggest Intel is forging ahead with a second-generation model. Bitcoin mining startup Griid says it has already signed a deal with Intel that includes orders of its BMZ2 chips for later this year.

With a reported US$900 million worth of new bitcoin mining equipment heading to the US from China this year, Intel’s timing is exquisite.

Categories
Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Hackers Tokens

‘Multichain’ Hack Update: $2.6 Million in Crypto Recovered

Cross-chain router protocol Multichain has recovered nearly 50 percent of funds stolen in last month’s hack, amounting to US$2.6 million in cryptocurrencies.

After a month-long fight against the exploit, the Multichain team has also announced a compensation plan for affected users.

On January 10, blockchain security expert Dedaub alerted Multichain to two vulnerabilities in its liquidity pool and router contracts, affecting eight cryptocurrencies including wrapped ETH (WETH), wrapped BNB (WBNB), Polygon (MATIC) and Avalanche (AVAX):

Multichain Enacts Emergency Damage Control

A week later, the Multichain team advised users to revoke approvals for the vulnerable smart contracts as a means of immediate damage control. However, the warning announcement only encouraged more hackers to try the exploit, resulting in losses exceeding US$3 million:

Risk Remains for Users Yet to Revoke Contract Approvals

Multichain advised that the vulnerability of the liquidity pool had been fixed by upgrading the affected tokens’ liquidity to new contracts, but warned: “The risk remains for users who have yet to revoke approvals for the affected router contracts. Importantly, users themselves have to be the ones to revoke the approvals.”

Late last week, Multichain reported that 4,861 of the 7,962 affected users had revoked approvals while advising the remaining 3,101 addresses to take action as soon as possible. Of the 1,889.6612 WETH and 833.4191 AVAX stolen funds, the team was able to recover 912.7984 WETH and 125 AVAX (worth nearly US$2.55 million and $10,000, respectively).

“However, in spite of our best efforts, a total of 976.8628 WETH has been stolen,” confirmed Multichain. To be eligible for compensation through reimbursement of losses, Multichain asked users to submit a ticket on the website by February 18.

Categories
Crypto News NFTs Scams

Crypto Detective Coffeezilla Exposes $20 Million ‘Squiggles’ NFT Scam

Self-appointed “internet detective” and YouTuber Coffeezilla has posted a new video explaining how he and members of the crypto community took down an alleged scam involving US$20 million in NFTs before it actually came to pass.

As Coffeezilla relates in the video (see below), serious hype had surrounded a new crypto project called “Squiggles”, which had an NFT drop scheduled for February 10. At the time, Squiggles had more than 230,000 followers on Twitter.

Hours before the anticipated drop, an anonymous user published a detailed dossier that alleged Squiggles’ founders were paid puppets. At the same time, the real people behind the project turned out to be a group of serial NFT scam artists operating under the umbrella name “NFT Factory LA”. As Coffeezilla explains:

[This dossier] documents allegations about NFT Factory LA, consisting of ‘Gavin, Gabe and Ali’, [three young men] behind not just Squiggles but several [other] NFT scams [which] include League of Sacred Devils, League of Divine Beings, Vault of Gyms, Sinful Souls, Dirty Dogs, Lucky Buddhas, and on and on.

Coffeezilla, YouTuber and ‘internet detective’

‘Stooges’ Impersonate ‘Original’ Three Stooges

The crypto community at large soon saw through these scams and the trio was quickly outed for orchestrating the alleged rug-pulls. To cover their tracks, they hired “stooges” to carry out the work of future projects, including Squiggles. However, before the project’s US$20 million NFT drop was due to take place, video footage was posted on Instagram allegedly showing Squiggles’ founder, Arsalan, and Gavin (one of the NFT Factory LA trio) together in the same Rolls-Royce.

Later, a photo surfaced showing all three members of the trio at the same location. “Pretty quickly, people put two and two together,” says Coffeezilla. Hours after launch, OpenSea delisted the project. “They were stopped from making the $20 million they could have made, and that’s good.”

Earlier this month, Coffeezilla posted a separate YouTube video in which he interviewed Paul Denino, aka livestreamer Ice Poseidon, who admitted to scamming fans out of US$500,000 in another crypto pump-and-dump scheme.

Categories
Australia Crypto News

SelfWealth Partners with BTC Markets Giving 120,000 Customers Access to Crypto Trading

Online Australian share-trading platform SelfWealth is expected to become the country’s first traditional stockbroker to offer cryptocurrencies to domestic clients, though it has yet to specify a launch date.

SelfWealth has signed a deal with one of Australia’s longest-running crypto exchanges, BTC Markets, with the aim of allowing its clients to hold digital assets under one roof. Customers will be able to trade up to five cryptos, pending regulatory approval from financial watchdog AUSTRAC, though the specifics on which assets will be selected are yet to be disclosed.

Original Plan to Launch by Late 2021

Established in 2011, SelfWealth has close to 120,000 active members and A$8 billion in assets under management. The Melbourne-based fintech spent seven months looking for a viable exchange partner and had originally planned to begin offering crypto to its customers by the end of last year.

The broker decided to pursue crypto after discovering more than 30 percent of its members were already trading in digital assets, flagging its plans to offer crypto trading to its customers as long ago as last July.

According to SelfWealth chief executive Cath Whitaker, “This is a good time to launch. Bitcoin has a speculative nature, but the dips present opportunities and it is reclaiming a fair value.”

ASIC Warns Investors to Brace for Losses

BTC Markets CEO Caroline Bowler agrees, but says the more interesting story centres on the crypto liquidity crunch, with Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) chairman Joseph Longo warning investors last month to prepare for potentially significant losses on crypto investments.

“[Crypto investing] is only risky if it lacks transparency,” Bowler says.

“We’re very upfront around disclosure and risk,” adds SelfWealth’s Whitaker, declaring the company felt comfortable with the BTC Markets partnership due to a shared understanding of “what cryptocurrency is, and isn’t”.

Categories
Bitcoin Mining Crypto News Digital Asset Mining

Queensland Sunshine Coast Energy Company ‘LPE’ Moves into Crypto Mining

Australian energy retailer LPE is dipping its toe into crypto mining after raising A$7.5 million to help fund its role in a sustainable-energy biohub near Bundaberg, in the Wide Bay region of Queensland.

Aerial view of the biohub near Bundaberg, Queensland. Source: LPE

The biohub, already generating electricity from biogas, hydrogen, solar and batteries, has crypto mining company Stak Mining as one of five tenants. Sunshine Coast-based LPE (Locality Planning Energy) plans to convert A$3 million of its A$5 million capital works funding into a 50 percent stake in Stak.

Should the conversion take place, LPE would receive a share of the proceeds in cash generated from crypto mining operations at the biohub, along with any additional mining operations Stak develops from its renewables-powered projects.

Deal Subject to ASX Regulatory Approvals

Before exercising its option on Stak, LPE requires regulatory approvals from the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) relating to its change in business activities. For its part, Stak estimates that its mining operations will commence in Q3 of 2022, although it has yet to build any infrastructure on the site.

LPE chairman Justin Pettet says his company’s involvement in crypto mining is “potentially highly lucrative”, and attractive to both new and existing investors. “The ASX has already flagged that crypto mining listings on the exchange are coming this year, so our timing is perfect.”

LPE chairman Justin Pettet. Source: themercury.com.au

Just last month, a piggery near the Central Queensland town of Biloela revealed it was generating enough excess methane via its biogas plant to mine bitcoin. And in September last year, Australian multinational investment bank and financial services giant Macquarie announced a partnership with Blockstream to create a carbon-neutral bitcoin mine in the US.

Categories
Charity Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs

Boy George Set to Release 9,999 NFT Collection

Boy George, arguably the first openly gay pop star of the modern era, has announced the launch of an NFT collection aptly entitled CryptoQueenz, timed to coincide with the release of seven new songs.

The writer and performer of hits such as Karma Chameleon, Church of the Poison Mind and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? will unveil 9,999 unique non-fungible tokens on the CryptoQueenz site and OpenSea from March 1:

Three Charities to Benefit from Sale of NFTs

Part of the proceeds from the sale of each NFT will help support the LGBTQ+ community, with two per cent of profits also allotted to the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Shelter, a separate British charity for the homeless, in perpetuity.

Each NFT will include the face of the famous Boy George artwork Scarman, along with samples of his renowned hat collection:

“As a creator and artist I’ve long been interested in the different mediums which can act as a canvas for self-expression,” Boy George said. “NFTs and digital art are a great example of this and help to democratise the stuffy art world for everyone”.

“I hope this project will help to bring a little colour and joy into everyone’s lives whilst also helping to support the LGBTQ+ community, which I’m very proud to be a part of.”

Boy George Identifies as a ‘Crypto Maniac’

Boy George, who fronted the ’80s band Culture Club, first expressed his interest in NFTs last year when he signed a deal with trading site Crypto.com to produce content for its new NFT platform.

I think life turned me into art. I’ve painted myself into a corner. I love metaphors and mystery and crypto sounds like klepto, so that makes me a crypto maniac.

Boy George, musician/artist

Speaking of maniacs, Boy George was possibly gazumped last month by fellow singer Ozzy Osbourne who launched his own NFT collection called CryptoBatz, so named for an infamous moment in the former Black Sabbath frontman’s career when Osbourne bit the head off a bat during a 1982 live performance in the US.

Both, however, were beaten to the punch by Australian pop-rap star Tones and I, whose appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine last July was turned into an NFT.

Categories
Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs

CryptoPunk Sells for $23 Million, Doubles Previous Record

A CryptoPunk NFT has sold for 8,000 ETH (US$23.7 million), doubling the previous CryptoPunks record of US$11.8 million, set last June.

As announced via Twitter, Deepak Thapliyal, CEO of cloud blockchain infrastructure firm Chain, purchased CryptoPunk #5822 directly from CryptoPunks developer Larva Labs’ own online marketplace:

Thapliyal also tweeted that he leveraged DeFi protocol Compound Finance to pay for his CryptoPunk, telling Compound founder Robert Leshner: “Thanks to Compound I am able to still [hold] ETH while buying this. Basically long’d ETH to punk-in.”

Accusations of Money Laundering Erupt on Twitter

Within 24 hours of the sale, accusations erupted on Twitter of a money-laundering exercise, suggesting both buyer and seller were interchangeable:

NFT Record Price Rankings

CryptoPunk #5822 fetched the fourth-highest price ever for a single NFT. Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” topped the tree at US$69.3 million last March, followed by last week’s sale of artist Pak’s “Clock” NFT to AssangeDAO, as reported by Crypto News Australia. Coming in third is Beeple’s “Human One”, which changed hands for US$29 million in November.

These rankings may well change after Sotheby’s single-lot sale of 104 CryptoPunks NFTs scheduled for live auction on February 23 in New York City.

Categories
Crypto News Ethereum NFTs Social media

‘OnlyFans’ Set to Adopt ETH-Based NFT Profile Pics

Following the lead of Twitter, Reddit and YouTube, racy online subscription service OnlyFans has announced that its users can now use verified Ethereum non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in their profile images.

Creators who choose to do so will receive an Ethereum symbol to show they own the asset. When users click on an NFT profile picture, they will see more information about the digital asset from OpenSea:

The idea of digital ownership is important to OnlyFans, a Web2 company whose business model has at times put it at odds with the traditional financial system.

Our mission is to empower creators to own their full potential. This feature is the first step in exploring the role that NFTs can play on our platform.

OnlyFans CEO Amrapali Gan

Launching in 2016, OnlyFans’ initial appeal was to amateur porn stars looking to take their “act” direct to audiences and cut out (at least some of) the middlemen. Similar to Patreon, OnlyFans takes a cut of the action in exchange for use of the platform.

New CEO Soft-Pedals OnlyFans Content

But the site has worked to temper its X-rated image, gradually replacing porn content with live music sessions, cosplay tutorials and fashion tips. Former chief marketing and communications officer (now CEO) Amrapali Gan took over the platform in December and says he has since shifted its emphasis to “non-nude” content.

Not that OnlyFans has dispensed with suggestive photos and videos entirely – that would serve to alienate much of its (hard) core audience.