Author: Phil Stafford

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

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Australia Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs

Australia’s First NFT Gallery Opens on the Sunshine Coast

Australia’s first non-fungible token (NFT) gallery has opened at Baringa – a new suburb near Caloundra – on the Sunshine Coast, with the goal of making the Queensland holiday region a hub for digital artists and tech enthusiasts:

According to Kenny Lienhard, chief executive of the METACOLLECT Gallery, the global NFT community – now worth billions of dollars, although its total value has slipped amid the current bear market – is poised to extend across business, sport and the wider community once market conditions improve.

Ideal Timing for an NFT Gallery

“Crypto artists now have the ability to sell their art and make a living via a global platform on their own terms,” Lienhard says. And with Australia ranking second in the world in terms of interest in NFTs, the timing of project makes perfect sense.

“We’ve developed our own NFT marketplace and publication, both focused on undiscovered Web3 artists while also providing the opportunity for the general public to easily mint NFTs and broadcast them directly onto gallery frames,” Lienhard adds.

METACOLLECT was co-founded by Lienhard and Sean Ballent, who in 2018 also jointly launched Cryptowriter, a blockchain-agnostic, community-driven crypto publication. “We decided our publication needed a brand mascot and our first NFT product was born.”

METACOLLECT’s John Williamson, Kenny Lienhard (centre) and Jimmy McRae at the gallery.

Two sold-out NFT collections later, the pair also designed an NFT art brand that would become UNDRGRND, formulated to discover and support underappreciated NFT artists.

Artist Publication Morphs into Gallery, Token and Marketplace

The UNDRGRND publication was launched in November 2021 and the next logical step for Lienhard and Ballent was to deliver their $COLLECT token, NFT marketplace and Web3 IRL gallery, under the collective banner of METACOLLECT.

The gallery is open to the public every Saturday from 10am-4pm. The address is Unit 11/9-13 Matheson St, Baringa.

Hand in glove with the country’s inaugural NFT gallery, Australia’s first NFT-ticketed music festival, The Grass Is Greener, will also take place later this year in several east coast locations plus Canberra.

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Audius Blockchain Crypto News DeFi NFTs Tokens

Now You Can Tip Your Favourite Musician Through Blockchain Streaming Service ‘Audius’

Blockchain-based music streaming service Audius is enabling fans to tip artists using $AUDIO token, the platform’s native cryptocurrency.

More Forms of Monetisation to Come

“We’re creating new ways for our seven million active monthly users to show their favourite artists how much they appreciate their work,” Audius co-founder and CEO Roneil Rumburg said in a statement. “But this is just the first piece of monetisation – in the coming weeks and months we look forward to expanding on monetisation with more options for fans and artists alike.”

The company also plans to introduce “ways to tip that do not require tokens”. The platform already offers fans the opportunity 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.

Launched in 2018, Audius hosts over 250,000 artists who have released a combined one million tracks on the platform. “A lot of experiments have been run over the years to evolve the music industry’s business model,” said Rumburg. “But we’ve yet to see a platform that strikes the right balance, improving the music experience for the parties that matter most – artists and their fans. 

Audius is laying the groundwork for a new era where artists reclaim control over their work and their earning potential, all the while giving fans a closer relationship to the music they love. Tipping is a small first step in this direction.

Roneil Rumburg, co-founder and CEO, Audius

Artists including Katy Perry, Nas, Jason Derulo, Pusha T, the Chainsmokers and Steve Aoki have all invested in Audius. “Everyone who uploads to Audius can be an owner; you can’t say that about any other music streaming platform,” says rapper/entrepreneur Nas.

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Crypto News Metaverse NFTs

‘Greatest of All-Time’ Skater Tony Hawk Launches Virtual Skate Park in Sandbox

Tony Hawk, the world’s most famous skateboarder, is building a skate park in the metaverse in partnership with The Sandbox and Autograph:

Under the Autograph collaboration, Hawk will produce NFTs that fans will be able to leverage in The Sandbox’s metaverse. This latest collection joins others of Hawk’s that feature his equipment and apparel, including the legendary skateboard Hawk used to land the 900 (a 2½-revolution aerial spin) at the X Games in 1999.

Hawk an Early Crypto Adopter

Since launching in 1999, his Tony Hawk Pro Skater franchise has generated over US$1.4 billion in sales. Hawk was also an early adopter of cryptocurrency, having bought bitcoin in 2012 after discovering it on the now-defunct Silk Road marketplace:

I’ve been a fan of new technology all of my life, from the very first video games and home computers with CGI capabilities, so I am fascinated by the metaverse and excited to bring our culture into the virtual landscape of The Sandbox.

Tony Hawk, skateboarding legend and early crypto adopter

Hawk will collaborate with The Sandbox to build “the largest virtual skatepark ever seen”.

The Sandbox has become a magnet for celebrities and brands to explore the metaverse by launching experiences and digital representations of their products, having formed partnerships with the Care Bears, Warner Music, the Walking Dead, Snoop Dogg, Deadmau5, Atari, the Smurfs and Adidas. Just last week, lifestyle brand Playboy announced it was launching its ‘MetaMansion’ in The Sandbox.

Since raising US$93 million in its series B funding round last November, the company is reportedly considering a new funding round that would bring in US$400 million at a US$4 billion valuation.

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Australia Crypto News Regulation Surveys

Australia 5th in Global Crypto Rankings: Report

Australia ranks fifth among the world’s top crypto-friendly economies, according to the latest quarterly global cryptocurrency rankings released by analytics firm Coincub.

Coincub awards points across nine overall categories: government, financial services, population, taxation, talent development and industry participation, trading, fraud and environmental potential. New sub-categories such as crypto education courses and initial coin offerings have been added to create a more comprehensive gauge.

Germany, US Top the Table, Followed by Switzerland and Singapore

Jointly topping the table are Germany and the US, whose dominance stems from both countries’ progressive regulatory environments and major bitcoin investments by mainstream institutions.

Allowing its savings industry to utilise crypto investments and maintaining a zero-tax policy on capital gains on BTC and ETH held for more than a year were key reasons for Germany’s ascent to the top of the rankings earlier this year.

The US moved up from third spot in Q1 to share the top rank with Germany in the wake of President Joe Biden’s March executive order on digital assets, which increased consumer protection and financial stability while also cracking down on illicit activity.

Switzerland came in third on Coincub’s global crypto rankings, largely due to the City of Lugarno recognising bitcoin as legal tender. More than 1000 blockchain and virtual asset service providers are based in Switzerland, and the country also ranks highly for its preponderance of Bitcoin nodes and ATMs.

In fourth place is Singapore, down from top spot at the end of 2021 because of recent regulatory tightening in the island republic.

Why Australia Made the Top Five

Australia’s proliferation of initial coin offerings, exchanges and transaction volumes, as well as several of its universities offering blockchain and crypto educational courses, helped see it into fifth place.

That position tallies with Australia’s status as the fourth-best market for crypto job opportunities, according to a May report. Australians also ranked eighth in the world for interest in NFTs, according to analysis published this month by online lender CashNetUSA.

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Crypto News Crypto Wallets Cryptocurrency Law Hackers NFTs

UK Court Rules That Lawsuits Can Be Served Via NFTs

In what is a legal precedent for the High Court of England and Wales, a plaintiff has been granted permission to file a lawsuit against anonymous defendants by means of an NFT drop.

The move will allow Fabrizio D’Aloia, founder of Italy-based online gaming company Microgame, to serve legal documents on people who are not known by name but connected via two digital wallets:

Joanna Bailey, an associate of Giambrone & Partners LLP who are representing D’Aloia, described the precedent as “significant” in a sector where scams and hacks can often only be tied to wallet addresses and not their actual individual owners:

This is so important because it shows the court’s willingness to adapt to new technologies and embrace the blockchain and actually step in to help consumers where previous legislation and regulators simply could not …

Joanna Bailey, associate, Giambrone & Partners LLP

D’Aloia claimed to have been lured by an online brokerage into depositing about 2.1 million USDT and 230,000 USDC into two wallets that turned out to be fraudulent. The court ruling, said Bailey, allows D’Aloia to sue those responsible for the fraudulent platform by sending court documents via an NFT drop to the two wallets.

Other Legal Firsts Involving NFTs

Such specified usage of an NFT drop follows a world-first international hacking case last month where a defendant was served with a temporary restraining order by means of an NFT.

A month earlier, the UK High Court of Justice ruled to recognise NFTs as private property, hailed as a “landmark” in the ongoing battle against fraud in the crypto space.

However, the catch in that ruling was that the conferred private property status did not extend to the underlying content represented by an NFT.

Civil Procedure Rules in the UK have previously allowed for lawsuits and legal documents to be served using Instagram, Facebook, and a contact form on a website. Until now, the only other means were via personal services, “snail” mail, dropped off at a physical address, or by sending a fax or another type of “electronic communication”.

Categories
Crypto News Gaming Metaverse NFTs

Playboy Set to Launch ‘MetaMansion’ in The Sandbox

Soon to enter its 70th year, seemingly ageless lifestyle brand Playboy is building on its Web3 presence to launch what it calls the MetaMansion in collaboration with NFT-based metaverse gaming platform The Sandbox.

This new, virtual version of the Playboy mansion will feature a host of gaming, social and programmed events, along with future NFT collectibles.

Rabbitars Lose Their Bounce

The MetaMansion is an extension of Playboy’s Rabbitars NFT project, 11,953 tokenised bunny avatars that sold for just over US$800 apiece in October 2021. In a sign of these straitened crypto times, the floor price of Rabbitar NFTs on OpenSea is down 74.25 percent since launch.

In better news for the ageing brand, The Sandbox has stated that users will be able to snap up NFT land plots neighbouring the MetaMansion later this quarter. These should be in hot demand considering someone coughed up US$450,000 to be rapper Snoop Dogg’s virtual neighbour in The Sandbox-based Snoopverse last December.

Sebastien Borget, chief operations officer and co-founder of The Sandbox, endorsed the platform’s new collaborator with the following warm words:

Playboy is emblematic for its charm, lifestyle, and entertainment content that has transcended generations and [it] has already stepped into Web3 with early success.

Sebastien Borget, chief operations officer and co-founder, The Sandbox

Sandbox Up, SAND Down

The Sandbox has formed a procession of mainstream partnerships with various other popular figures and brands, including the Care Bears, Warner Music, the Walking Dead, Snoop Dogg, Deadmau5, Atari, the Smurfs and Adidas.

That said, the price of its token (SAND) is down 86.8 percent since its all-time high of US$8.40 in late November 2021. It would appear that both The Sandbox and Playboy remain undeterred, launching the MetaMansion in the depths of the current crypto bear market.

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Australia Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Payments

Australia Ranks Last Out of 20 Countries in Digital Currency Ownership: UN Report

New data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) shows that only 3.4 percent of Australians own crypto, placing the country last in a list of 20.

While Ukraine (12.7 percent), Russia (11.9%), Venezuela (10.3) and Singapore (9.4) topped the list, the most surprising result was that Kenya (8.5) was the highest-ranking African country, edging out South Africa (7.1) and Nigeria (6.3):

The result for Nigeria is also significant in that out of a population of 211 million, just over 13 million were owners of digital currencies in 2021.

Crypto Awareness Still Low in Australia

By comparison, a recent study conducted by research firm Roy Morgan found that over a million Australians owned some form of crypto, out of a total population of almost 26 million. Another survey published in December last year found that only one in 10 Australians even knew what a cryptocurrency was.

UNCTAD acknowledged in its findings that cryptocurrencies have grown in popularity in some Third World countries because they are “an attractive channel through which to send remittances”.

UNCTAD also found that middle-income individuals from hyperinflation-hit developing countries either own or hold cryptocurrencies because they are seen “as a way to protect household savings”.

Categories
Crypto News DeFi Hackers NFTs

NFT Lender ‘Omni’ Exploited for $1.4m in Reentrancy Attack

In circumstances similar to early May’s US$80 million exploit of DeFi platform Rari Capital, NFT money market platform Omni lost 1300 ETH (about US$1.43 million) in a flash loan reentrancy attack last weekend:

According to a tweet from blockchain security firm PeckShield, the July 10 attack took the form of a hacker using NFTs from a collection called Doodles as collateral to borrow wrapped ETH (WETH). The hacker exploited the reentrancy vulnerability by withdrawing all but one of the Doodle NFTs. This triggered a malicious callback function enabling the hacker to use the borrowed funds to buy even more Doodles before liquidating the loan position.

Hacker Uses Borrowed WETH to Buy More NFTs

The remaining NFT was never going to cover the debt position, which is where the reentrancy came in – the attacker was able to use the borrowed WETH to buy more NFTs prior to liquidating the loan.

According to a statement from Omni, the exploit did not impact any customers as only internal testing funds were affected, since the platform is still in beta testing mode and has since paused all operations pending a thorough investigation:

Data from Etherscan shows the hacker has already laundered the funds via Tornado Cash. This increasingly common modus operandi was also deployed when MM.Finance, the largest DeFi exchange on Cronos, had a vulnerability in its Domain Name System exploited in May, less than a week after the Rari Capital hack.

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Crypto News Cryptocurrency Law USD Coin Voyager Token

Crypto Broker ‘Voyager’ Files for Bankruptcy Amid Three Arrows Default

In a move that will surprise no one even remotely invested in the digital assets space, crypto exchange Voyager Digital has this week filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a result of exposure to failed hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) and a foundering crypto market.

Voyager’s Voluntary Petition for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Source: Southern District Court of New York

Voyager ‘Has a Plan’

Said to be owing anywhere from US$1 billion to $10 billion in assets to more than 100,000 creditors, Voyager pleads that its voluntary bankruptcy move is part of a “reorganisation plan” that, once implemented, would enable clients to re-access their accounts. In so doing, Voyager says it would “return value to customers”.

Detailing the plan, Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich said customers with crypto in their accounts would receive a combination of crypto, proceeds from the 3AC recovery, common shares in the newly reorganised company, and Voyager tokens:

Ehrlich added that customers with US dollars in their accounts would be able to access those funds after a “reconciliation and fraud prevention process is completed with Metropolitan Commercial Bank”.

However, the bank has since clarified that its FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) cover does not apply in the event that Voyager fails:

FDIC insurance coverage is available only to protect against the failure of Metropolitan Commercial Bank. FDIC insurance does not protect against the failure of Voyager, any act or omission of Voyager or its employees, or the loss in value of cryptocurrency or other assets.

Metropolitan Commercial Bank statement

SBF to the Rescue?

Voyager’s announcement comes after trading firm Alameda Research, founded by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBF), led a US$60 million fundraising round for the crypto lender in May. Less than a fortnight ago, SBF warned that some “third-tier” crypto exchanges were secretly insolvent. Surely he’d seen the writing on the wall for Voyager?

Earlier this month, Voyager halted all trading and withdrawals on its platform, citing 3AC’s default on a US$650 million loan. In response, Alameda extended to Voyager a massive credit line made up of nearly US$200 million in cash and 15,000 bitcoin. Good money after bad?

Voyager says it intends to pay its employees in the usual manner and continue its “primary benefits and certain customer programs without disruption”. Trading, deposits, withdrawals and loyalty rewards, however, will remain suspended.

Categories
Australia NFTs

Australia’s First NFT-Ticketed Music Festival Launches For ‘The Grass Is Greener’ 2022

An annual all-ages music, food and art festival kicking off again later this year in an expanded format will be the first major Australian event to integrate NFTs into its ticketing via a limited-edition 1,111 NFT collection:

Dates Added for Canberra and Geelong

The Grass Is Greener 2022 travelling festival starts its 2022 season on the Gold Coast on October 22, followed by its first-ever show in Canberra on October 23. The festival, inaugurated in 2016, will also take place in Cairns, far north Queensland, on October 29 and then conclude in Geelong, Victoria, on October 30.

Grass Is Greener NFTs will grant owners access to the event itself and its unique on-site experiences, including Lifetime Ticket NFTs, Backstage Pass NFTs and “much more”. Organisers also tout multiple themed stages and an upgraded VIP experience.

Grass is Greener NFT Collection. Source: Grass is Greener via Twitter

Where to Sign Up

Artists already announced for the 2022 travelling festival include Ty Dolla $ign, VNSSA, Pnau, Sticky Fingers, Onefour, Maya Jane Coles and Boo Seeka. For the complete lineup appearing at each event, visit The Grass is Greener’s official website.

The NFT mint is scheduled for 08h00 (AEST) on July 12, 2022, and those interested in participating are encouraged to joined the event’s Discord group.

Sticky Fingers are on the bill for The Grass Is Greener 2022. Source: abc.net.au

In Other NFT Music News

The Grass Is Greener festival’s NFT ticketing innovation is arguably the biggest news on the music-related NFT front since blockchain-based platform Opulous announced its world-first music copyright-backed NFTs in January this year, allowing fans to bankroll their favourite artists by harnessing the power of DeFi.

And for those fans who’d rather experience music events in the metaverse, a month earlier Animal Concerts launched a virtual touring company to host “live” music events via Web3. Through this project, artists will be able to earn up to 50 percent of their revenues from both virtual ticket and NFT sales.