Author: Phil Stafford

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

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Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Crypto News Ethereum Litecoin Mining Trading

Debt-Laden Laos Approves Crypto Mining for Economic Growth, Reverses Previous Ban

The one-party socialist government of landlocked South-East Asian country Laos has green-lit six domestic firms to trade and mine cryptocurrencies.

As named by government mouthpiece The Laotian Times, the companies that have been licensed are Wap Data Technology, Phongsubthavy Road & Bridge Construction, Sisaket Construction, Boupha Road-Bridge Design Survey, Phousy Group and Joint Development Bank. Only the latter, a state-backed lender, appears to have any financial background. 

Most of the others are construction or infrastructure-related firms. Phousy Group, for example, has been active in road and bridge building in Laos since 1998, mainly as a favoured contractor to the Laotian government.

All six companies have been given permission to trial mining and trading of digital assets including bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin. A commission led by the Laotian Ministry of Technology and Communication will set out a regulatory plan to be scrutinised by the country’s prime minister, Phankham Viphavanh, this week.

After Banning Crypto in 2018, Laos Changes Its Tune

The announcement comes less than a month after Laos’s central bank issued a warning to the public against trading digital tokens. The government issued a decree that effectively banned crypto in 2018 and repeated its stance as recently as last month.

The country’s rediscovered enthusiasm for cryptos follows the crackdown earlier this year on bitcoin mining by Laos’s nearest and biggest neighbour, China, ostensibly on power consumption grounds. 

The Nam Ou hydro-electric project on the Mekong River in Laos, established in 2016 with an installed capacity of 1,272 megawatts.

What Laos has going for it is that it is a hydro-electric superpower, making it an ideal potential home for power-hungry crypto miners. Its economy is based on harnessing hydro electricity from the country’s extensive river system and exporting two-thirds of its reserves to neighbouring countries Thailand, China and Vietnam.

Crypto Mining: A Ready Antidote to Foreign Debt?

For that reason alone, Laos is seen by the World Bank as one of the Pacific region’s fastest-growing economies, with annual GDP growth averaging 7.4 percent since 2009, though the nation is also mired in foreign debt.

Government powerbrokers may have one eye on developments in El Salvador, which officially made bitcoin legal tender this month and plans to harness the Central American republic’s abundant geothermal energy, derived from its many volcanoes, to mine bitcoin. Based on the current BTC price, this could earn the Salvadorean government more than A$1 billion per year.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum Gaming

Sydney-Based ‘Immutable’ Raises $60 Million for Eco-Friendly NFT Games Platform

Australian gaming and digital asset technology business Immutable has announced an A$82 million (US$60m) Series B funding round, bringing its total funding to A$105 million.

Sydney-based Immutable, creators of Immutable X – a solution for scaling and trading non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – will use the funds to expand its engineering and sales teams and strengthen its partnerships with gaming companies.

The funds will also be used to scale the growth of Immutable’s in-house published NFT games, Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians.

Ten International VC Firms Participate in Funding Round

The Series B round was co-led by San Francisco-based BITKRAFT Ventures and King River Capital, with participation from eight other VC firms. Immutable X will act as the underlying infrastructure to power NFT trading, enabling transactions at a much faster rate than is usual on Ethereum. It also requires reduced computing power and thus incurs much lower gas fees for users.

Immutable co-founders James (left) and Robbie Ferguson. Source: smartcompany.com.au

Immutable’s sibling co-founders James and Robbie Ferguson maintain their product is built to preserve the security and decentralisation of Ethereum, the blockchain of choice for NFTs, although Solana is starting to challenge its supremacy and is hosting three new NFT games on its blockchain where players can compete and trade with NFTs.

First Carbon-Neutral Scaling Solution for NFTs on Ethereum

Ultimately, the Immutable platform is the first carbon-neutral scaling solution for NFTs on Ethereum. “NFT trading is a terrible mainstream user experience right now,” says Robbie Ferguson. “It’s expensive, illiquid, and the only existing scaling solutions compromise on the most important thing – the security and user-base of Ethereum.”

We want businesses to create their game, marketplace, or NFT application within hours via APIs, with a mainstream user experience. No blockchain programming required.

Robbie Ferguson, co-founder, Immutable

Ferguson says the company has 120 employees and hopes to grow to 200 within six months. He acknowledges other major blockchains besides Solana have an eye on NFTs, including Flow (owned by Dapper Labs) and Polygon, but sees competition as a good thing because “our most important mission is we want to make digital worlds real. And that means giving people ownership of their stuff in a secure, decentralised blockchain.”

Jens Hilgers, founding partner of leading investor BITKRAFT Ventures, sees Immutable as the future face of asset trading.

In-game items and digital assets will broadly move onto the blockchain. To support and accelerate this shift the industry is in need of a scalable, fast, efficient and trusted blockchain layer. We have found [with Immutable] the best team and product in the market to make this industry shift a reality. 

Jens Hilgers, founding partner, BITKRAFT Ventures
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Crypto News Litecoin Retail Scams

Fake News Alert: Litecoin Surges on Walmart Adoption Hoax

We can now officially add “fake news” to a growing list of crypto scams after a bogus press release went out on September 13 claiming that US retail giant Walmart was partnering with Litecoin (LTC) to accept payments in the cryptocurrency.

The press release, published by US agency globenewswire.com, purported to be connected to “Walmart Inc”. Several mainstream media outlets including Reuters, Bloomberg and CNBC ran with it, inflating the value of Litecoin by 28.9 percent over 24 hours. Those gains were erased once it was established the news was false.

Several cryptocurrency influencers had already tweeted that the announcement was fake. One of them discovered that the URL “WALMART-CORP.COM” had been registered just last month. It was contained in the email quoted in the globenewswire.com press release and did not lead to an official website.

Whoever created the fake release most likely disposed of a significant quantity of LTC as traders swallowed the hype, meaning investors became unwitting victims of a simple pump-and-dump.

We promptly withdrew the press release and issued a Notice to Disregard. This has never happened before and we have already put in place enhanced authentication steps to prevent [it] from occurring in the future. We will work with the appropriate authorities to request – and facilitate – a full investigation, including into any criminal activity associated with this matter.

Statement from globenewswire.com

SEC Likely to Launch Investigation

The involvement of a publicly traded company means the SEC is also likely to launch an investigation. The regulator has repeatedly prosecuted those who try to use fake news to manipulate financial markets.

The Litecoin Foundation may also be partly to blame, as it retweeted the press release from its own account. But according to foundation head and Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, the retweet was a process error:

We have three people who have access to the [Litecoin] Twitter account. The person on duty saw the news on globenewswire.com and … retweeted it, and 10 minutes later he saw that it was fake and we deleted it. It’s unfortunate. We’ll definitely be more careful in the future … but I think the story blew up before we tweeted it.

Charlie Lee, Litecoin creator/foundation head
@emilychangtv grills Litecoin’s Charlie Lee about the fake Walmart press release.
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Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum NFTs Solana

Solana Continues to Gain Ground, Netting First Million Dollar NFT Sale

The Solana blockchain is stealing a march on its Ethereum rival with its first million-dollar non-fungible token sale.

A Degenerate Ape Academy NFT (below) changed hands on September 11 for 5980 SOL, or about US$1.11 million, in a record sale for Solana.

And that wasn’t all. After shelling out seven figures for Degen Ape #7225, a hideously scarred zombie primate with a halo munching on a brain, Moonrock Capital, a European blockchain advisory and investment firm, announced a few hours later it had purchased a CryptoPunk knock-off NFT, also on the Solana blockchain, for 1388 SOL (US$257,446.24).

Last week, a single Bored Ape NFT sold for a new record US$2.9 million to the creators of The Sandbox, an upcoming Ethereum-based open-world metaverse game.

Ethereum Challenged By Cardano, Tezos and Solana

However, with its lower fees and reduced traffic, Solana is presenting a serious challenge to the Ethereum blockchain, which initially cornered the market on NFTs. But its popularity caused traffic and fees on Ethereum to skyrocket and rivals like Cardano, Tezos and Solana are capitalising, at least for now.

As the NFT space continues to explode, more artists and content creators are moving their works from Ethereum to Solana while it remains the cheaper option.

The price of Solana’s native token has already taken off in response, with its market capitalisation vaulting over XRP and Dogecoin to become the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency. Its total value is now US$54 billion compared with XRP’s $43.5bn and DOGE’s $32bn.

A month ago, a single SOL was worth just $40. After it recently hit an all-time high of more than $200, the token is now changing hands at around $185.

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Crypto Art Crypto News Ethereum NFTs

NFT Madness Continues as 101 Bored Ape NFTs Sold for $25 Million

A collection of 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible tokens sold for almost US$25 million at auction this week, underlining the insanity of an out-of-control NFT market that topped US$5 billion in overall sales last month.

The exact total of US$24.4 million paid for the BAYC collection translates to an average price of US$241,515 per NFT, smashing Sotheby’s pre-sale estimate of $12-18 million for the lot.

A second lot of 101 Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) NFTs – digital dogs designed as companions for the apes (see video below) – sold for US$1,835,000.

The digital apes have garnered a runaway cult following among the cryptocurrency community, attracting celebrity collectors such as NBA superstar Steph Curry, the NFL’s Dez Bryant, and musicians including electronic duo the Chainsmokers and rapper/entrepreneur Jermaine Dupri. BAYCs have also been the subject of a feature in The New Yorker magazine.

Single Bored Ape NFT Sells For New Record Price of $2.9 Million

This week’s auction drew largely positive support from the BAYC and broader NFT community on Twitter. Sotheby’s also reported interest from traditional art collectors who are “eager to learn” about the new art category.

We actually have a number of other NFT auctions already in the works and have been developing a long-term NFT strategy since [the first two quarters of 2021].

Michael Bouhanna, co-head of digital art, Sotheby’s

Last month, Crypto News Australia reported that a single BAYC token fetched the equivalent of US$1.29 million on OpenSea. Earlier this week, however, a single Bored Ape NFT sold for a new record US$2.9 million to the creators of The Sandbox, an upcoming Ethereum-based open-world metaverse game.

The Sandbox has foreshadowed a partnership with Bored Ape Yacht Club and plans to turn the illustrations into playable 3D avatars that owners can use within the game.

The three Bored Ape NFT drops so far have collectively generated more than US$777 million worth of trading volume, according to data aggregator CryptoSlam.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Investing Regulation

Ukraine Has Officially Legalised Bitcoin

The Ukrainian Parliament has passed draft legislation to legalise and regulate bitcoin in Europe’s second-largest country after Russia, providing official clarity on the asset.

The bill, first drafted in 2020, passed on September 8 with 276 lawmakers in support and only six against. Its main purpose is to protect those who own and trade in bitcoin. Though never officially illegal, until now Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have treated bitcoin and other virtual currencies as “a scam”. Ukrainians could buy and exchange virtual currencies but local courts had no power to provide protection if something went wrong.

Interestingly, back in April official data showed that 652 officials in the Ukrainian government owned 46,351 bitcoin – among other cryptocurrencies such as XLM, ETH, Monero and ADA – the total value of which was around US$2.7 billion.

Bill Provides Tax Clarity But Signals More Regulation

Ukrainian courts can now properly protect individuals and businesses, since the bill provides tax clarity and officially allows bitcoin businesses to operate in the former Soviet country. It also sets guidelines for how Ukraine may try to regulate bitcoin in the future.

Although virtual assets are now legitimate in Ukraine, citizens cannot use them as a means of payment or exchange for goods or services – only the official national currency, the hryvnia, has this power. The new bill allows citizens to own and trade bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on exchanges and also provides clarity on wallets and private keys.

Ukraine Hopes To ‘Open the Market’ by the End of the Year

The Ukrainian Parliament is expected to pass and amend its tax and civil codes before the end of the year to officially “open the market” for businesses and investors, according to Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Source: bbc.com

If signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky, the draft law will protect the owners of virtual assets and exchange platforms from fraud. Even so, experts worry that excessive regulation could stifle innovation and place undue pressure on businesses. Some crypto investors could leave the country because they do not trust state initiatives.

Those who opt to stay hope the new legislation will reduce the number of unjustified raids on crypto businesses initiated by Ukraine’s Security Services.

It’s important to note that even though bitcoin is now legal in Ukraine, it does not mean BTC is legal tender, as it officially is now in El Salvador. Another bill entirely will need to be passed for that to happen.

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Crypto News Ethereum Scams Tether TRON

14 Arrests Made Following $5 Million Crypto Investment Scam

An old-fashioned honey trap has led to more than 100 victims becoming ensnared in a crypto investment scam that relieved them of almost US$5.5 million over the past 12 months.

Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) arrested 14 suspects on charges of fraud, money laundering and breaches of the country’s Organised Crime Prevention Act, the Tapei Times reported on September 6.

Kuo Yu-chih, the CIB investigator in charge of the case, has revealed that the scheme focused on Ethereum, Tronix and Tether. The ringleader, known only as Chen, fronted the Taipei-based Azure Crypto Company, which offered cryptocurrency and other investment services.

Meet Attractive Ladies Online and Kiss Off Your Crypto

Chen promoted crypto investments on social media, promising high returns. His modus operandi was to lure unsuspecting victims to websites where they were persuaded to invest via interactions with attractive women. Investigator Kuo Yu-chih summarised Chen’s MO:

Chen and his staff allegedly used photographs of pretty women to attract mainly male victims, many of whom were in retirement with substantial savings.

Kuo Yu-chih, chief investigator, Taipei CIB

Chen and his staff claimed to be financial advisers specialising in cryptocurrency mining. The CIB seized ledgers containing the details of more than 100 people who invested in the scheme.

The amount of US$5.41 million lost in Taiwan’s crypto honey trap is small beer compared to the US$119 million rip-off of investors in a Turkish Dogecoin mining scam, as reported by Crypto News Australia last month, but it serves as yet another reminder to be on guard. In 2020 alone, Australians lost A$26 million to scammers, and incidences of online shysterism are only multiplying as the worldwide take-up of crypto investment continues apace.

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Crypto News Ethereum Gaming NFTs

Yet-to-Be-Created NFT Game ‘Loot’ Hits $211 Million in Sales in First Week

Just when you thought the world of NFT gaming couldn’t get any weirder or more lucrative for the least possible effort, crypto’s latest trend is playing games before they’re even built.

Developers used to take sometimes years to build a game before releasing it, then cashed in by selling in-game items and raking in the profits. But crypto degens have flipped the script by selling the in-game items first and then hoping somebody else will build the game.

Yet even without guarantees of any future utility, these items and artifacts are selling for millions – US$211 million over the past seven days, in fact, according to data from NFT-Stats.

Dom Hofmann, Loot creator. Source: vox.com

On August 27, Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann described the Loot project as “randomised adventurer gear”, stating there were only 8,000 bags of said gear. Of course, all 8,000 were snapped up within four hours after Hofmann provided a link to an Ethereum contract, which members of the crypto community used to create the bags and send them to themselves. It was free to claim the bags but they had to pay transaction fees.

Each bag contains eight items for a supposed adventurer, a few wearables and a weapon. They’re all named as in any mythological game, with descriptors such as “Dragonskin Armour” or “Platinum Ring of Anger”.

Not Real, Not Digital, Just White Text on a Black Background

But these are not real bags, nor are they even digital ones. They are simply white text on a black background, saved as images and minted as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. They look like the reversed panel in the tweet below:

How Loot Was ‘Created’

Back in March, Hofmann created Blitmap, which he described as a “community-created fantasy universe”, a blueprint for what Loot would become. Since Blitmap’s launch, Hofmann considered other ways to promote the creation of blockchain-based art and communities to surround them. One idea was to let people mint NFTs based on his random-item generator for free, just to see what would happen. He would not provide any artwork or any instructions on what to do with them. And he would give these “bags” of items away for free, minus the transaction fees required by the Ethereum network.

The 7,777 bags Hofmann offered up for minting were all snapped up more or less instantly. Over the next five days Loot bags were resold for US$46 million, and had a market cap of US$180 million. On September 1, the cheapest Loot bag could be had for about US$20,000. That price more than doubled overnight to US$46,000.

Game developers can build a game or multiple games around these collectibles, assigning items that match the attributes in the bags. So anyone who owns the bags may be able to access such items within these yet-to-be-created games.

No Secure Future But Plenty of Value

Despite the lack of any secure future, the bags continue to attract value. At time of writing the cheapest price for a Loot bag was 12.4 ETH (US$48,360), while the highest sale yet was for just shy of US$1 million – for a single bag.

With Loot now on the loose, the NFT gaming bonanza shows no signs of slowing. One of the other frontrunners in the space, Axie Infinity, saw its token, axie infinity (AXS), skyrocket over 50 percent in a single week last month.

Categories
Blockchain Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs Sports

NFL Prohibits Teams From Launching NFTs and Crypto Sponsorship

In a move that counters the trend in most other major sports, from football to boxing to cricket, the US National Football League (NFL) has banned its teams from selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or sponsorships to cryptocurrency trading firms.

As reported on sports website The Athletic on September 3, clubs are restricted from selling “advertisements for specific cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, other cryptocurrency sales or any other media category as it relates to blockchain [or] digital assets”, according to the NFL guidelines.

However, the policy does allow for sponsorships with companies that mainly provide investment advisory or fund management services related to cryptocurrency, along the lines of Grayscale Investments’ agreement with the New York Giants.

Rule Does Not Appear to Apply to Specific Players

Tom Brady with wife Gisele Bündchen. Source: Us magazine

Individual ventures seem to be exempt from the rule. For example, star quarterback Tom Brady has a joint stake in crypto derivatives exchange FTX with his Brazilian supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen, and he also owns an NFT platform in partnership with sports betting operator DraftKings. Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammate Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski recently sold an NFT collection, while Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes released his own collection of NFTs on MakersPlace in March.

Russell Okung, first NFL player to be part-paid in bitcoin. Source: oldnorthbanter.com

Carolina Panthers lineman Russell Okung announced last December he would be getting half of his US$13 million salary paid in bitcoin. Okung timed his decision well, as the NFL had just capped the league’s salaries at US$180 million. Some suggest Okung is now the highest paid NFL player thanks to his crypto manoeuvre.

The NFL policy places it at odds with other major sports in the NFT space. The NBA has pursued a lucrative partnership with Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot dating back to May last year, and in July Major League Baseball launched its own NFT marketplace with Fanatics-owned Candy Digital.

The Athletic’s report does not disclose any negative feedback from players who have already participated with crypto firms, or whether they have been granted any form of immunity from the new ban.

Possible Reasons for the Ban

It has been suggested that teams are not permitted to sell NFTs because the league is developing its own strategy for sports digital trading cards and art. While other leagues have opened the floodgates for digital assets, the NFL is notoriously cautious with new commercial categories. For example, it trod very cautiously with gambling and alcohol promotions before eventually relaxing its restrictions.

In the case of cryptocurrency, the league currently only allows teams to align with companies that are a step removed from trading.

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Investing Real Estate

31% of Gen Z Australians Own Crypto According to Latest Report

The days of traditional finance are numbered, with cryptocurrencies expected to overtake fiat in Australia by 2029. A new report also reveals Australians have amassed over A$7 billion in crypto with 31 percent of the Gen Z population leading the investment charge, a figure that has doubled since January.

Overall, 17 per cent of Australians own cryptocurrency, according to the report from comparison site Finder, while a further 13 per cent said they intended to buy digital assets within the next year.

Bitcoin Is Still the Boss

The average Australian investor owns A$2,078 in crypto assets, with Bitcoin (held by 9 percent of Aussies) still the most popular currency ahead of Ethereum (8 percent), Dogecoin (5 percent) and Bitcoin Cash (4 percent).

Finder’s cryptocurrency expert James Edwards says Gen Z’s investment profile signals that traditional finance is being phased out. He makes a bold prediction for the future of crypto in Australia:

Many Aussies are now much more clear on the benefits cryptocurrencies offer, such as bitcoin being a hedge against fiat currency and inflation, plus the ability to earn interest on assets through things like stablecoins and decentralised finance on Ethereum. We should expect to see [crypto] as a dominant financial industry by the end of the decade, especially among younger generations who have never had meaningful access to traditional finance.

James Edwards, cryptocurrency expert, Finder

Crypto Investment Overtakes Real Estate Among Younger Demographics

The Finder report notes that the proportion of Australians (17 percent) who own crypto is now identical to the cohort who own two investment properties. Talking about house and property prices has long been a national pastime but it seems that investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is what Australians are really up to.

In June, Crypto News Australia reported how 40 percent of Australian millennials prefer to invest in digital assets over real estate. A survey of more than 1000 investors conducted in the same month by fund manager Vanguard Australia showed that millennials are the biggest cohort that own crypto assets.