Category: Ethereum

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Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum NFTs Solana

Katy Perry Invests in $5 Million Funding Round for Decentralised Spotify Rival Audius

Katy Perry, along with other music superstars including Nas, Jason Derulo, Pusha T, the Chainsmokers and Steve Aoki, is the latest investor in crypto-powered music streaming platform Audius.

Audius is a music streaming app, like Spotify or SoundCloud, built on the blockchain and unique as it is the first truly decentralised music platform. The protocol was originally developed on POA (Proof of Authority) Network, an Ethereum sidechain, and has now moved parts of its service to include the Solana blockchain. Developers can build their own apps on top of Audius, giving them access to an exclusive audio catalogue.

Blockchain-Powered Music for Artists

Audius is giving power back to artists, offering a decentralised network model where users can upload their songs directly to the platform and even earn $AUDIO crypto token rewards for using the network. With six million monthly active users, Audius is an open-source community-owned and operated protocol that aims to give artists full control over how their music is monetised online and also enables them to connect directly with fans.

Social Media and NFT Integration

Audius is the first to offer integration with TikTok, allowing artists to share their songs with TikTok users to stream in their viral videos. Audius also offers NFT features, allowing musicians to showcase their own NFT collectibles to fans. It is a powerful tool that allows artists full control and ownership of their copyrighted musical works. No wonder the musicians themselves are excited to support this new music business model.

“Everyone who uploads to Audius can be an owner; you can’t say that about any other platform,” says rapper/entrepreneur Nas.

You can check out more about Audius here.

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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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Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum Google Industries NFTs

FLOW Surges 20% on News of Google Signing Deal with NFT Giant

Dapper Labs, a leading platform for digital collectibles and games on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, has partnered with Google Cloud services to help the Canadian start-up scale. As a direct result, the FLOW token has seen an increase of nearly 20 percent.

Dapper Labs has its own blockchain, Flow, which helps users scale apps and games. Google will improve on the product by acting as a network operator, providing developers on the Flow network with digital infrastructure that can process high transaction volumes at greater speed.

With Google’s help, Dapper Labs hopes to scale NBA Top Shot and other NFT lines running on Flow to billions of users.

NFT Platforms Still Performing Well

Dapper Labs products are some of the most used platforms on the Ethereum blockchain, with between 500,000 and one million transactions per week. NBA Top Shot, its flagship invention, has recorded over US$700 million in total sales and has been the leading collectible Dapp by users and volume (US$3.05 million) for the past 30 days, according to industry data site DappRadar.

Flow USD price chart. Source: Coinmarketcap

Following news of the partnership, FLOW‘s price spiked 15.5 percent in 24 hours to highs of US$24.13, while daily transaction volume stands at US$150 million, bouncing back after this month’s major dip.

Also earlier this month, another Dapper Labs product, CryptoKitties, sold more than US$7 million worth of NFTs in 24 hours as growing interest in non-fungible artworks boosted sales.

Warner Music partnered with the company via a strategic investment deal announced the same day, while Dapper Labs further revealed that Ubisoft, known for developing games such as Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed, would function as an adviser on Flow.

Blockchain technology is becoming more and more mainstream. So companies like Dapper need scalable, secure infrastructure to grow their business and, even more importantly, support their networks.

Janet Kennedy, vice-president, Google Cloud North America

Google Dabbling in Blockchain

After it recently lifted an advertising ban on cryptocurrencies, Google’s latest partnership suggests it could venture into infrastructure building for Web 3.0.

Google’s cloud services do not currently offer mining cryptocurrency, but Janet Kennedy, vice-president of Google Cloud North America, has said developers will be able to choose regions that power their platforms based on their energy consumption.

Dapper Labs CEO and co-founder Roham Gharegozlou tweeted that he was “amped to welcome Google to Flow Blockchain”.

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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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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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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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Bitcoin Crypto Exchange Crypto News Ethereum Trading

Over $3.7 Billion Liquidated as Bitcoin Tanks Below $46,000 – What Happened?

Over US$3.7 billion worth of crypto positions were suddenly liquidated this week as Bitcoin (BTC) and major altcoins tanked. The market downturn was preceded by a flash selloff mostly in bitcoin, which resulted in an 11.6 percent drop in the overall cryptocurrency market capitalisation, down to US$2.16 billion over the past 24 hours. 

According to data from Bybt, US$3.71 billion worth of crypto futures positions were liquidated in 24 hours. A total of 375,824 traders were forced out of the market as they got overleveraged due to the sudden drop in crypto prices. The single largest liquidation (US$43.7 million) happened on the Huobi-BTC market. 

The total value of bitcoin liquidated at the time was US$1.39 billion. Within two hours, the price of BTC tanked by 11 percent, from US$51,101 to $45,299 on Coingecko. However, major crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase recorded as low as US$42,900 and U$42,850, respectively.

Major altcoins that were significantly affected in the flash crash include Ether (US$928.7 million), Ripple ($223.78 million), Solana ($95.1 million) and Cardano ($84.28 million).

This incident comes as a reminder of how risky leveraged trading can be, noting that it can amplify profits and losses in trading.

What Happened?

The flash crash on September 7 came as a shock to many crypto investors, given the day was supposed to be bullish as El Salvador officially legalised bitcoin. In addition to market volatility, many experts said bitcoin dropped because the El Salvador news was already priced in. Crypto researcher Larry Cermak also pointed out one possible reason was that the funding rates for altcoins were spiking too much:

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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.

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Crypto Memes Crypto News Dogecoin Ethereum NFTs

Demand for Fractionalised NFTs Grows as Doge Meme Valuation Exceeds $300 Million

The Shiba Inu named Kabosu is not only the most popular dog on the planet, it’s been immortalised on the blockchain as the face of Dogecoin – now up for sale in pieces as a fractionalised NFT.

In June 2021, Kabosu’s owner, Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato, minted the famous photograph as an NFT. The image (above) of her pet dog went viral, after unknowingly becoming the mascot for $DOGE – the cryptocurrency that started mass meme coin mania and whose valuation is now over US$300 million.

The NFT, aptly named Doge, was sold recently for a record-breaking price of 1696.9 ETH (over US$5.5 million) to investment collective PleasrDAO on August 31.

PleasrDAO is now offering up the NFT in parts to the broader Dogecoin community by fractionalising it into billions of pieces using fractional.art. The Doge NFT is now available for purchase in the form of $DOGE ERC-20 tokens, allowing for multiple owners.

First Auction Generates US$45 Million

The first auction of $DOGE took place on September 1 on miso.sushi.com, raising a total of 11,942 Wrapped Ethereum (worth more than US$45 million) from 1,796 buyers, according to figures from MISO.

Fractionalisation of an NFT allows owners to mint ERC-20 tokens. Unlike NFTs, which usually apply Ethereum’s ERC-721 token standard, the ERC-20 tokens are fungible and can be traded, sent and received on smart contracts running on the Ethereum blockchain. $DOGE is now available to exchange on fractional.art or on decentralised exchanges Sushi or Uniswap.

Ownership of the Doge NFT provides access to an exclusive set of activities brought to you directly by the Doge community. For more details, visit the Doge Discord.

Top “blue chip” NFTs have become insanely expensive and are now out of reach for many collectors as prices have gone through the roof: CryptoPunks, for example, recently hit US$1 billion in sales. CryptoPunk #543 has also been chopped up and sold as a fractionalised NFT, going for $1 per share.