Category: Ethereum

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Crypto News Ethereum NFTs Solana

Solana NFT Project ‘Okay Bears’ Sets Record Day 1 Sales

As Solana continues to challenge Ethereum’s dominance of the NFT ecosystem, the former’s new profile picture project Okay Bears generated more trading volume on its first day than any rival’s.

With 10,000 unique avatars, Okay Bears launched this week on Solana NFT marketplace Magic Eden at a mint price of 1.5 SOL (about US$145) per NFT. Secondary market sales quickly surged, sending the price of the collection soaring and generating US$18.4 million in trading volume.

First For Solana in Terms of a Single Day’s Trading Volume

The stunning Okay Bears performance represents the first time a Solana NFT project has beaten individual Ethereum projects in terms of 24-hour trading volume.

“Solana projects have just as bright a future as projects on other chains,” said Tiffany Huang, Magic Eden’s head of content and marketing, with some understatement.

With a more than passing physical resemblance to Ethereum’s Bored Ape Yacht Club avatars, Okay Bears sport a random array of mix-and-match traits. And like BAYC, the creators of Okay Bears plan to reward holders with future NFT drops, additional perks and benefits.

According to Huang, the platform generated over 380,000 SOL (about US$37.4 million) of secondary trading volume in 24 hours, a record for Solana. Yet Ethereum retains the ascendancy with its recent MoonBirds NFT launch generating more than US$200 million on debut. Earlier this week, a single Moonbirds NFT changed hands for more than US$1 million.

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Crypto News DeFi Ethereum Real Estate

ETH Project ‘Teller’ Concludes World’s First DeFi Mortgage

USDC.Homes is a new company that partners with mortgage lenders and brokers to facilitate home loans using cryptocurrencies. This week, the company sold its first home to an Austin, Texas, resident who bought a US$680,000 condo through the Ethereum-based lending protocol Teller.

Forget About Fiat – Buy Your Home With Crypto

Teller calls USDC.Home the “first unsecured DeFi mortgage”, with its hybrid program that combines practices from both the traditional finance and decentralised finance worlds. Borrowers can ask for loans and show their credit score to determine eligibility and can use cryptocurrency staking or other yield-generating activities to pay off the balance:

Thanks to a good credit score, the Austin homebuyer was able to get the loan and while he didn’t put up collateral, he did make a downpayment in USDC. He was able to earn interest on the downpayment by putting his assets to work through staking.

According to Teller, all transactions take place on-chain using Ethereum sidechain Polygon, which leverages a set of mechanisms to make transactions faster and cheaper.

Buying Homes With Crypto – From Dreams to Reality

Buying a home using bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies was a mere dream years ago, but it’s now a solid reality thanks to mainstream adoption of digital assets.

A few months ago Crypto News Australia reported that Milo, a US fintech company, had launched the world’s first Bitcoin mortgage offering, enabling customers to buy real estate in the US by leveraging their stack as collateral:

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Crypto News DAO Ethereum Optimism Tokens

ETH Scaling Solution ‘Optimism’ Launches DAO, Plans to Airdrop OP Token

Optimism, a leading Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution, has unveiled its new governance structure and is preparing to release a token called OP to help power the change: 

Governance of Two Houses

Optimism’s newly announced governance structure is to be split into two halves: the Citizens house and the Token house. The Citizens house will be governing the distribution of funding for retroactive public goods, whereas the Token house will focus on driving growth, protocol upgrades, and project incentives.

The new governance token, OP, will be the power behind the Token house. It will create incentives for users to contribute to governance, as much of the project’s decisions will be voter-based. This house will be established through a token airdrop to users.

This airdrop will not just be a one-time event, as users can expect a second drop in Q2. While awaiting an official date for the first airdrop, users can find eligibility information and an allocations link within the initial announcement.

Layer 2 and DAOs

Aside from Optimism, there is a wide range of projects working to continue the expansion of the DeFi ecosystem and resolve network performance issues. Crypto News Australia has compiled an informative list of projects worth watching.  

Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) are the blockchain-based version of companies that are native to the internet. There’s a lot to know about DAOs, not to mention a list of risks and benefits, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Crypto News Australia has also published a handy guide to DAOs.

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Algorand Avalanche Crypto News Ethereum Solana Terra

Institutions Leaving ETH for Competing Altcoins, CoinShares Report Reveals

According to analysis from CoinShares, investors have favoured smaller layer-one altcoins of late with institutional capital outflows from Ethereum hitting US$17 million:

Smart Money Favours Layer-One Projects

Institutional investors have been shifting their attention away from Ethereum to competing layer-one blockchain projects, with capital inflows for altcoins increasing while ETH products posted outflows for the third consecutive week. Data from CoinShares’ Digital Asset Fund report shows that investors bought up US$3.5 million worth of Avalanche, Solana, Terra, and Algorand.

The data shows total outflows of ETH now amount to US$59.3 million, around 35 percent of the year-to-date outflows of US$169 million.

Weekly Flows from ETH. Source: CoinShares

Decentralised application usage on Solana in the past week has increased, according to data from DappRadar. While the metrics from Avalanche’s DApp usage have not increased over the week, the project’s investment in incentive programs and millions spent bringing developers to the platform signal a bullish future.

Significant Shift in Past Three Weeks

Inflows into Avalanche, Solana, Terra and Algorand were US$1.8 million, US$800,000, US$700,000, and US$200,000 respectively, with Bitcoin recording inflows worth US$2.6 million for the first time in two weeks. Over the past three weeks, total outflows were US$219 million, a significant shift from the US$134 million that left the market in the first week of April.

In March, another report released by CoinShares showed that institutional crypto funds had seen their biggest capital inflows since December 2021, with over US$193 million coming in during the week ending March 25.

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Australia Bitcoin DeFi Ethereum Market Analysis

Australians Made $2.1 Billion in Gains from Crypto in 2021

Australians realised US$2.1 billion in crypto gains in the 2021 calendar year, putting Australia in 17th place globally for annual realised crypto gains, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

Globally, gains were up more than five-fold compared to the previous year, increasing from US$32.5 billion in 2020 to US$162.7 billion in 2021, with the US seeing the most gains by a wide margin:

Many Countries Record Increases of 400-500%

This is the first year that Chainalysis has reported annual gain data on cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin (BTC), so it’s hard to draw direct comparisons – but based on the BTC data, it appears gains in Australia are up around 5x, which is in line with similar economies around the world. In 2020, Australia saw around US$0.2 billion in BTC gains, while in 2021 this figure was close to US$1 billion.

Many other countries saw similar increases: the US recorded growth of 476 percent, from US$8.1 billion to US$47.0 billion; UK gains grew 431 percent; and gains in Germany were up 423 percent.

China’s gains increased from US$1.7 billion to US$5.1 billion, a modest gain of 194 percent. This relatively subdued growth is most likely a reflection of the Chinese government’s crackdown on crypto activity over the past year.

Majority of Gains From Ethereum

On a per-crypto basis, the majority of realised gains globally came from Ethereum at US$76.3 billion, with Bitcoin coming in second at US$74.7 billion.

Crypto gains by country by coin. Source: Chainalysis

Chainalysis attributes Ethereum’s dominance to the explosion in DeFi in 2021, saying:

We believe this reflects increased demand for Ethereum as the result of DeFi’s rise in 2021, as most DeFi protocols are built on the Ethereum blockchain and use Ethereum as their primary currency.

Chainalysis

Good Signs for Crypto

Chainalysis believes its data shows that crypto is in a vigorous growth phase and suggests it still represents a good economic opportunity moving forward, explaining:

While there are still risks the industry must work to mitigate, the data not only shows that crypto asset prices are growing, but also that cryptocurrency remains a source of economic opportunity for users in emerging markets.

Chainalysis

The crypto environment in Australia in particular looks bright, with increased regulatory clarity on the way and numerous crypto ETFs set to launch in the coming weeks.

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Crypto News Ethereum Metaverse NFTs

Nike Launches ‘CryptoKicks’ NFT Virtual Sneaker Collection

After flagging its move into the metaverse in December with the acquisition of digital art house RTFKT Studios, sports apparel giant Nike has debuted its Ethereum NFT sneakers, CryptoKicks.

In its teaser video released on Twitter (see above), RTFKT demonstrated how its Nike digital sneakers can be modified via collectible “Skin Vials”, which can be mixed and matched to enable a range of styles.

Nike/RTFKT CryptoKicks (physical version). Source: brainstation.io

CryptoKicks can be opened through RTFKT’s MNLTH Ethereum NFTs, which were airdropped for free to holders of RTFKT’s CloneX profile picture NFTs and other earlier RTFKT NFTs in February.

That same month, Nike sued online sneaker reseller StockX for selling unlicensed images of its NFT sneakers, claiming the US$3.8 billion company had sold around 500 Nike-branded NFTs at “inflated prices and [under] murky terms of purchase and ownership”.

Social Media Goes Mad For CryptoKicks

The launch of CryptoKicks follows a series of quests, or puzzles, collectors had to solve before RTFKT launched the website that allows holders to open the mysterious NFT vaults. As some holders have shared via social media, the MNLTH vaults contain a pair of CryptoKicks, a single Skin Vial, and a second MNLTH vault.

RTFKT will launch a quest series to unlock the MNLTH 2 vaults later this year. Each pair of CryptoKicks will also feature an “evolution path” enabling them to be progressed in various ways.

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Crypto News DeFi Ethereum MetaMask

MetaMask Users Frustrated as Infura Suffers Another Service Outage

Users of the popular Ethereum wallet MetaMask are infuriated after the wallet’s default endpoint, Infura, again suffered a major outage.

Infura is Metamask’s main RPC (Remote Procedure Call) provider that allows the wallet to communicate with the Ethereum network. Last week, at least 15 components of the Infura system suffered complete or partial outages, bringing down MetaMask access in the process.

MetaMask addressed the issue on Twitter, explaining that: “If you’re currently experiencing issues with MetaMask, it may be because of the outage that Infura is actively combating.”

Not the First Outage in the Infura Protocol

All Infura systems appear to be up and running again, as per the protocol’s status page. But this is yet another outage to have occurred in the Infura protocol, and users didn’t hesitate to call out for a more decentralised ecosystem where everyone can run their own nodes. As it was, users had to deploy different RPC endpoint solutions, such as Alchemy or QuickNode, to access their Web3 accounts:

On the subject of a lack of decentralisation, last month both MetaMask and OpenSea banned wallets associated with Venezuelan and Iranian IP addresses, citing compliance issues, only later to discover that Infura had cut off users to separatist areas in Ukraine, accidentally blocking Venezuelan users as well.

MetaMask has been having a rough time of it this month. On April 20, Crypto News Australia reported how MetaMask iPhone users were endangered by an iCloud-related phishing scam.

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Crypto News Ethereum Illegal NFTs Scams

$34 Million ‘AkuDreams’ NFT Project Locked Permanently by Smart Contract Error

An error in a smart contract has led to NFT project AkuDreams locking up US$34 million worth of Ethereum. The project was hit by an exploit through its refundable Dutch auction on April 22 in which the hacker did not profit but managed to lock up the funds:

Cryptocurrency developer Foobar tweeted coding (see above) showing that “$34 million, or 11,539 ETH, is permanently locked into the AkuDreams contract … It cannot be retrieved by individual users or by the dev team.”

‘No Malice Intended’

The AkuDreams Twitter account confirmed the exploit and said: “We are locked down and consulting with some of the best on the next steps. We will mint your NFTs, and reveal them as soon as humanly possible. We will also be working to issue funds for those passholders who bid with the intention of securing a price .5 ETH below the final price.”

Refunds and Withdrawals Blocked

The auction opened at 3.5 ETH on the premise that the lowest bid would set the final price, and anyone who placed a higher bid would receive a refund. AkuDreams passholders were also promised a 0.5 ETH discount on each NFT they minted. But due to a bug in the contract, an exploiter was able to halt refunds and withdrawals from the contract, which meant that auction participants who bid above the final NFT price could not receive the ETH they were owed. As a result, refunds and withdrawals from the contract could not be passed.

AkuDreams acknowledged the issue in saying that the exploit “was not done out of malice” and that it was looking into the incident. The announcement that followed contained the admission, “To be clear, this is our fault.”

The project has promised to return funds to the community and later confirmed that the NFTs would be airdropped to bidders, and that it would honour refunds for the passholders who are owed a 0.5 ETH discount.

Exploits, Exploits, and More Exploits

The crypto space has of late been rife with exploits taking place in every sector. In October 2021, a bug in the DeFi protocol Compound saw its users mistakenly rewarded with US$80 million in COMP tokens. Qubit Finance earlier this year lost US$80 million after its protocol was hacked, making it one of the biggest exploits so far this year.

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Coinbase Ethereum NFTs

Coinbase COIN Hits All-Time Low, Down 63% Since IPO

Coinbase stock has hit an all-time low just two days after it launched its Ethereum NFT marketplace. Since the launch, shares are down more than 15 percent and the price has dropped more than 47 percent since January.

Coinbase Plummets Despite New Developments

Coinbase shares on the Nasdaq slid down to US$131.14 hours after trading on April 22. The crypto exchange announced its plans to enter the NFT space in October last year, with over 1.5 million people signing up for the waitlist, and the beta version of the marketplace kicked off on April 20.

The launch, which had been hyped for over a year, failed to reverse Coinbase’s months-long slump, with the price almost halving since January.

Further Integration Planned Despite Lukewarm Reception

While everybody can access the website at the moment, with the beta launch only a select few clients can buy and sell Ethereum-based NFTs with payments in Ether. Coinbase plans to integrate other blockchains in the future along with unique features that would allow users to engage more. For now, though, it seems that Coinbase’s NFT marketplace has failed to generate much excitement despite entering a burgeoning space populated by other marketplaces such as OpenSea, Rarible, SuperRare and LooksRare.

What differentiates Coinbase’s marketplace from those of its competitors is that it emphasises communal experience, encouraging NFT artists and buyers to interact and connect with social features, much like Instagram. The platform, which has aggregated any NFTs for sale on the Ethereum blockchain across marketplaces, is still limited in terms of access and is slowly opening to its millions-long waitlist.

The downturn in prices comes at a bad time for Coinbase. The launch of its marketplace was initially planned for late 2021 and it has entered the red-hot NFT space just as it seems to be cooling down. Along with the price slump, Coinbase is also being dragged into a class action lawsuit for selling 79 “unregistered securities”.

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News ETFs Ethereum

Australian Crypto ETF Competition Heats Up, Two More Listings Set to Launch

Within days of news that Australians will soon receive the country’s first Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF), a slew of competitors look set to follow suit by launching their own own crypto ETFs.

Another Bitcoin ETF and the First Australian Ethereum ETF

According to a press release, 21Shares AG (“21Shares”), a Swiss-based issuer of crypto exchange traded products (ETPs), and Australian ETF provider ETF Securities have jointly launched two funds to provide direct access to bitcoin and ethereum respectively:

  1. 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (EBTC)
  2. 21Shares Ethereum ETF (EETH)

Both EBTC and EETH are due to list on April 27 on Australia’s secondary public exchange, the Cboe (formerly Chi-X), with EBTC tracking the price of bitcoin and EETH tracking the price of ethereum, both in Australian dollars. Much like Cosmos Asset Management bitcoin ETF (CBTC), whose bitcoin will be held by Gemini, both of 21 Shares’ funds have opted for an offshore custodian in the form of Coinbase, who will hold the assets in cold storage.

While 21 Shares claims that both of its products are a first in Australia, sticklers for detail may wish to point out that EBTC is in fact tied for first with CBTC, as both are scheduled to go live April 27.

In describing the commercial basis for its imminent listings, ETF Securities Australia executive chairman, Graham Tuckwell, said:

The products give investors a way of trading cryptocurrency in a tightly regulated environment, without the need to establish and maintain their own bitcoin or ethereum wallets, or manage the risks.

Graham Tuckwell, executive chairman, ETF Securities Australia

Biggest Capital Market Gets Left Behind

Shortly after news that Australia was going full steam ahead with crypto ETFs, a representative of global ETF provider VanEck described the US regulator’s conservative stance on listing a bitcoin ETF as “a big loss for investors”. And at present, there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight.

Last year, Crypto News Australia reported that there were more than 34 applications outstanding in the US, with “market manipulation” being one of the more frequently cited concerns.

It goes without saying that there are plenty of variables potentially holding up ETFs in the US – whether financial, political, or otherwise driven by “investor protection”. Whatever the case may be, it’s evident that as Australia becomes the eighth nation to launch a bitcoin and ethereum ETF, the world’s most developed capital market is getting left behind: