Category: Ethereum

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Cryptocurrencies DeFi Ethereum NFTs

ETH Soars 20% Amid Thriving NFT and DeFi Sectors

We are officially off to the races again as ETH leads the charge in a strong bullish ascent back up towards previous all-time highs after a month of sideways action. In the past week alone, ETH is up over 20 percent, reaching A$5,120 at the time of publication.

Source: Coinjar

Ethereum has now beaten bitcoin’s price action for three months straight. The King of Crypto has struggled to break through the key psychological resistance level of US$50,000, while Ethereum is picking up the pace, rising by 50 percent in the last month.

ETH has climbed over 380 percent so far in 2021, with gains largely attributed to the booming DeFi and NFT sectors. Bitcoin, however, has only managed to gain 62 percent so far this year against the USD. 

Here Comes DeFi Summer 2.0

Market activity and token prices are surging as altcoins, especially in DeFi, look to the upside and we welcome the announcement of DeFi Summer 2.0.

There used to be just bitcoin and altcoins. Now you’ve got bitcoin, altcoins, DeFi, NFTs, all these different things, and then within those you’ve got subcategories of gaming NFTs, JPG NFTs, collections of NFTs and real world NFTs. There are so many different things within crypto…and basically all the money does between all these different things is shift.

@ThatMartiniGuy, YouTube

Calling ‘Alt Season’

Traditionally when Ethereum breaks and Bitcoin dominance drops, money in the market flows into other cryptocurrencies. That is exactly what is starting happen as mid-caps begin to surge. The likes of Cardano, Solana, Polkadot and Kusama have all been performing exceedingly well as the sea begins to rise once again.

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Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum NFTs Scams

Fake Banksy NFT Sells For A$465,000 Amid Suspicion the Artist’s Website Was Hacked

A British crypto art collector who paid almost half a million dollars for a non-existent NFT by graffiti artist Banksy was most likely the victim of a hacker, as it turns out.

A link to an online auction for the purported NFT was posted on a since-deleted page of the artist’s website, banksy.co.uk, a week ago. The only item on the page was a JPEG (below) of Banksy’s impression of a CryptoPunk, the NFT craze that’s already generated more than A$1.5 billion.

The artwork, evidently Banksy’s comment on the substantial carbon footprint NFTs generate, was titled “Great Redistribution of the Climate Change Disaster”.

Banksy’s purported NFT, Great Redistribution of the Climate Change Disaster.
Source: yahoonews.com

Soon after an image of the artwork was listed yesterday on the OpenSea NFT marketplace, furious bidding broke out for what people assumed was a “genuine” Banksy NFT.

100 ETH For an NFT That Never Was

The winning bid, fully 90 percent higher than any other, was made by an otherwise anonymous crypto art collector who calls himself “Pranksy”. It ran to a gobsmacking 100 ETH, or just over A$465,120, according to blockchain records.

Meanwhile, the page on Banksy’s website was quietly taken down, with no word about how it had appeared on the site in the first place. The buyer told the BBC that he suspected Banksy’s site had been hacked, and that some random scam artist put up the seemingly legitimate webpage.

No Such Thing as a Banksy NFT

Banksy’s PR team also denied that any NFT existed in the artist’s name. But in a happy ending to a bizarre story, the hacker has since refunded the 100 ETH to Pranksy’s bank account, less the transaction fee of around A$10,000.

Pranksy says he’s planning on keeping the artwork, for now at least.

The refund was totally unexpected. I think the press coverage of the hack plus the fact that I had found the hacker and followed him on Twitter may have pushed him into a refund. I feel very lucky when a lot of others in a similar situation with less reach would not have had the same outcome.

Pranksy, duped NFT art collector

Just a fortnight ago, Crypto News warned Australians about the prevalence of fake crypto trading websites. Pranksy, for one, seems to have missed the memo.

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Crypto Art Ethereum NFTs

NFTs Still Booming as Ethereum-Based CryptoPunks Project Hits $1 Billion in Sales

CryptoPunks has become the second collectible NFT project in a month to surge past US$1 billion in sales after Axie Infinity hit the mark on August 8, though OpenSea remains the undisputed market leader with sales of US$3.53 billion.

With the cheapest CryptoPunk now selling for US$445,000, prices are still climbing – as recently as August 28, the floor price for a single CryptoPunk was a comparatively modest US$345,000.

“Covid Alien”, aka CryptoPunk 7523, which sold for $11.8 million. Source: cnn.com

However, neither mark remotely compares to the world record price paid at auction for a single CryptoPunk in June: an astonishing US$11,754,000 for “Covid Alien”, aka CryptoPunk 7523, one of just nine “alien punks” in a series.

A Cool $15M For a Pair of Alien Punks

There are a total of 10,000 CryptoPunks, with no two exactly alike. When launched in 2017 by Larva Labs, original CryptoPunks were made available for free but several have since changed hands for millions of dollars. Two other “alien punks” sold for more than US$7.5 million each, according to CryptoSlam, and seven more have gone for over a million each. In May, a collection of nine CryptoPunks sold for almost US$17 million at Christie’s.

Trading surged to new heights in late July, pushing CryptoPunks’ daily volume up from US$1.8 million to US$41.5 million within a week. Things got even hotter in August. A week ago, CryptoPunks hit a daily sales record of US$101 million when VISA bought one of the Punks, and the project’s total trading volume has increased by 716 percent in the seven days since.

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Crypto News Ethereum NFTs

Costly Mistake: Mutant Ape NFT Sold for 17 USDC Instead of 17 ETH Worth $54,000

Confusing USDC for ETH is a costly stupidity fee in the world of crypto and NFT trading. This kind of “accident” happens when you don’t pay attention, and there is no customer service desk to help you get a refund.

Mutant Ape #5275.

Last weekend, Mutant Ape #5275 sold for just $17 (0.0035 ETH) instead of 17 ETH (US$54,000) on OpenSea. Here is the transaction on Etherscan.

Floor price for the Ape is 7.95 ETH (US$24,200). The new owner of Mutant Ape #5275 scored the deal-of-a-lifetime discount after fooling the seller by cheekily sending through his purchase bid in USDC (instead of the usual transaction currency of ETH).

Mutant Ape #5275 Now on the Market for a Cool $18K

According to Etherscan and OpenSea, poor Douglass had spent about 2.87 ETH ($9,100), including fees, to mint Mutant Ape #5275 before mistakenly selling it to lucky recipient FungiblesV1 for only 17 USDC (instead of the 17 ETH he likely assumed). Only three hours later, he swiftly flipped the NFT for 5 ETH, making an easy profit of $15,900, which he then onsold to new owner Weevis who currently has a highest offer pending of 5.7691 ETH ($18,318.80).

The initial sale has raised the question of whether OpenSea should as a matter of course post a warning in the order of “are-you-sure-you-really-want-to-sell-this-NFT-for-a-99.9%-loss?“

Misfortunes such as this are sadly commonplace in the wild west of NFT collectibles. In early August, Crypto News Australia reported how another simple error led to a US$69,000 CryptoPunk selling for under one cent.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum

Cuba Set to Embrace Crypto to Tackle Ongoing Economic Crisis

Amid a tumultuous economic crisis and its Central Bank enforcing a ban on US dollar cash deposits, Cuba is looking for a way forward – and crypto might be the answer.

The Caribbean island nation is taking its cue from many other South American countries and will start to recognise and regulate cryptocurrencies, it announced on August 26.

According to a resolution published in Cuba’s Official Gazette, the republic’s central bank – Banco Central de Cuba – will govern how citizens would be allowed to use cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum. It is also expected that Cuban authorities will distribute relevant licences to businesses based on the crypto-related services they offer.

Cuba’s Dire Economic Situation

The announcement comes as Cuba finds itself immersed in anti-government protests over a lack of food and medicine during an economic crisis. The situation is made worse not only by the Covid-19 pandemic but also by foreign sanctions.

The Cuban government has also done away with its dual-currency system, causing many citizens to lose money as they traded in Cuban convertible pesos for the traditional Cuban peso.

Cryptocurrencies have gained in popularity as the population finds it harder to use US dollars, partly due to the toughened embargo rules imposed by former US president Donald Trump.

Crypto allows for anonymous long-distance transactions, making it popular with citizens and businesses wanting to evade government regulations – including US restrictions on sending money to Cuba.

The official resolution added that the Central Bank can authorise the use of cryptos “for reasons of socioeconomic interest”, but the state will ensure that their operations are controlled. The resolution made it clear that operations could not involve illegal activities.

Cuba Follows El Salvador’s Lead

Cuba is not the first South American country to openly endorse and allow the use of cryptocurrencies. El Salvador passed a bill in June making it the first country in the world to approve bitcoin as legal tender.

Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Paraguay and Nicaragua are among other South American countries embracing cryptocurrencies.

By Jana Serfontein, Crypto News Australia Guest Author

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Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum

Ethereum Experienced Software Upgrade Issues Over the Weekend

In a recent situation affecting the Ethereum blockchain, not all full nodes have installed an important update, resulting in a chain split. It seems like a bug in the older versions of the Ethereum (ETH) Geth client needed fixing and some node administrators were slow to respond.

An Unintended Chain Split

During mid-August, a “high severity” vulnerability was spotted on the Ethereum Geth client used for running nodes to keep the network safe and the data accurate; this prompted the hotfix called “Hades Gamma”.

The exact attack vector will be provided at a later date to give node operators and dependent downstream projects time to update their nodes and software. All Geth versions supporting the London hard fork are vulnerable (the bug is older than London), so all users should update.

Ethereum core developer

The Chiliz exchange even temporarily paused deposits and withdrawals of ETH, BSC and HECO due to the bug. But now, since too few of the nodes had the newest patch up and running, the chain has split.

However, at the time of publication, the majority of nodes are running updated versions of Ethereum, meaning the hash rate is supporting the longest chain. 

Geth client versions: ethernodes.org

What Are the Implications for Ethereum?

This means that the Ethereum blockchain is currently processing at least two chains simultaneously, which could lead to double-spending where users spend cryptocurrency but the transaction is overwritten on an alternative chain.

The Geth client accounts for 74.63 percent of the network nodes and only 66 percent have the most up-to-date version, leaving the rest at risk. An address has been identified by The Block Research as the address that exploited the bug.

What is the Latest?

At the moment the nodes are catching up to get the chain completely up to date, with many within the community calling for node operators to update.

Delays are also to be expected since this is a massive community update requiring many different node operators to update their clients.

There are technologies to make transitions such as these smoother by forcing important updates on nodes, but the Ethereum blockchain should reach normality as soon as nodes catch up.

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Cardano Crypto News Ethereum

Number of Cardano Millionaires Skyrockets: 1,850% Increase in the Last Month

Cardano’s recent market performance has blown out the number of ADA millionaires from 3,625 on July 20 to 9,830 on August 24.

As per a recent in-house post, the number of Cardano addresses with a balance greater than US$1 million has surged 173 percent during ADA’s recent price rally, which reached an all-time high of $3.02 on August 23. Compared to Cardano’s 1455 percent year-to-date (YTD) gains, this represents a 1,850 percent jump considering the number of millionaires went from 504 to 9,830.

ADA bottomed out at US$1.007 on July 20 but quickly saw a boost in price by almost 200 percent on the ADA/USD exchange rate. This move followed up a 6.42 percent correction in price, trading at US$2.67 at the time of writing. 

The blog post also highlights the number of unspent transaction outputs (UTXO), which have spiked following Cardano’s rise in 2021. UTXOs represent unspent tokens that remained in wallets after deposits. When a blockchain detects UTXOs are rising, it means that most wallets are HODLing instead of selling.

Could Cardano Unseat Ethereum?

As reported by Crypto News Australia, Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson said in May that while Ethereum developers were working to implement several upgrades to the network, it was still falling behind its competitors. Most of the recent bullish sentiment is centred on the idea that Cardano could take a huge slice of the market, even outranking Ethereum.

Most of the hype is also due to the imminent launch of the Alonzo hard fork, an upgrade that would finally deploy smart contract compatibility for the network. Back in March when the Mary upgrade was announced, ADA surged 579 percent, making the blockchain compatible with DeFi projects and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

Another boost for the coin came after Cardano announced the launch of a new stablecoin, Djed, which seeks to eliminate price volatility using formal verification.

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Crypto News Ethereum NFTs

Ethereum-based NFTs Have Caught Fire Surging 546% Monthly Trading Volumes

Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea has seen an exponential increase in volumes following the recent frenzy in the NFT market.

Several metrics including trading volume, monthly sales, fees and active traders on the platform have surged significantly since the beginning of August, according to analytics data.

OpenSea Sees 546% Increase in Volume

At the time of writing, OpenSea gained over US$1.8 billion in monthly trading volume, which represents about a 546 percent increase from the previous volume in July. The record today is significant given that OpenSea only saw about US$284 million in July trading volume. This is over 60 percent of the US$2.7 billion all-time volume on the platform.

NFT Frenzy Statistics – Dune Analytics

Additionally, OpenSea has done over 1.1 million in NFTs sales since the start of August, and only 458,052 NFTs were sold on the platform in the previous month, as per Dune Analytics. The number of registered users on the platform also increased significantly, which shows more people are still jumping into the NFT market. 

Number of NFT Sales – Coin Metrics

The number of sales on OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, reached a peak of over 60,000 per day over the last week, which is close to 8x the peak reached in March, according to a report by Coin Metrics.

Going by the 30-day volume, OpenSea is the largest NFT marketplace, followed by Axie Infinity, CryptoPunks, NBA Top Shot and many others.

NFT Mania is Only Getting Bigger

The massive increase in user activities on OpenSea coincides with a growing interest in NFT trading. More people are joining the NFT market and millions of dollars are being traded on a daily basis, featuring content from musicians, artists and celebrities.

Rapper Tyga is creating an NFT Platform

Crypto News Australia recently reported that the latest edition of Floyd Mayweather’s NFT collection was launched on August 13. The retired boxer also claimed that a substantial portion of his portfolio worth “over a billion dollars” is invested in digital currencies.

German automaker Audi is among the few big-name companies to launch an NFT collection and aggregator platform for car NFTs.

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Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Ethereum NFTs

VISA Buys a CryptoPunk for $150k

VISA, the largest payment processor in the world, bought an Ethereum token. But why? Are they really interested in NFTs, or is it all just a big PR stunt?

The Punk bought by VISA

VISA bought CryptoPunk 7610 for 49.50 ETH (approximately US$149,939). The interesting thing about the transaction was that in order to purchase the CryptoPunk, Visa actually had to buy ETH to make the transaction. This is very bullish news for Ethereum, that companies as big as VISA are buying ETH to make transactional purchases.

Cuy Sheffield, VISA’s head of crypto, said in a company blog post that VISA wanted to “signal our support” for people involved in the NFT market.

Visa Enters a New Era of NFT-Commerce

VISA announced via Twitter: “We enter a new era of NFT-commerce, VISA welcomes CryptoPunk #7610 to our collection.”

We think NFTs will play an important role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment and commerce.

Cuy Sheffield, VISA’s head of crypto

Essentially what this means is that VISA is open to cryptocurrency. Crypto trader and YouTuber That Martini Guy says that by participating in the space, VISA is showing massive support for blockchain as a whole and adds: “This is one of the reasons why I’m so bullish and so confident on cryptocurrency in the long term. These companies know that they don’t have a choice. If everybody continues to use all of these systems, they have no choice but to adopt these systems.”

Since purchasing CryptoPunk #7610, the official VISA Twitter account has changed its profile pic to an Ethereum-based CryptoPunk NFT:

VISA Twitter profile – archive.is

It is no secret that VISA has major plans for cryptocurrency adoption. By getting on the NFT bandwagon and buying a Punk, this not only gets it some free press but also helps crypto reach the mainstream media. For more, read Crypto News Australia‘s recent story on the first Aussie VISA crypto debit card.

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Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum NFTs

Rap Star Tyga to Launch OnlyFans Competitor Platform with NFTs

In the wake of OnlyFans’ recent announcement that they will ban sexually explicit content come October, multiplatinum artist turned entrepreneur Tyga has announced the launch of his own content platform called Myystar.

Tyga took to social media to announce that he has deleted his OnlyFans page and will be starting his own content platform to compete with OnlyFans.

Set for full release in October, Myystar will allow users “creative freedom” in response to the ban set by OnlyFans. Tyga’s platform will be taking only 10 percent of creators’ earnings – half of OnlyFans’ 20 percent.

Helping Others

Not only will Myystar house content from comedians, athletes, musicians and podcasters, but creators will be able to sell their own NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain.

Tyga expressed his concern that many people make a lot of money on OnlyFans and most of their revenue is made there:

I want to give those people hope.

Tyga

Myystar is Tyga’s next business endeavour after launching Too Raww, a modelling agency aimed at helping people get started on OnlyFans.

Joining the NFT Craze

Myystar will join CumRocket, a new DeFi project which recently created its own private subscription platform and NFT marketplace.

NFTs provide artists with exposure, revenue and connection with their fans, as we saw earlier this year when Melbourne street artist Lushsux made over US$500,000 from selling NFTs.

The NFT craze is diverting the attention of musicians, artists and celebrities who now see it as an opportunity to promote their work and make some extra cash.

By Jana Serfontein, Crypto News Australia Guest Author