Category: NFTs

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Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs Sports

Liverpool FC Launches NFT Collection Dubbed ‘LFC Heroes Club’

Following the lead of Manchester City, Barcelona and Paris Saint Germain, Liverpool is the latest major football club to launch its own collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The LFC Heroes Club – launched in partnership with Sotheby’s Metaverse – features generative imagery of each of its 24 players in what the club says is an “innovative way to celebrate being an LFC fan from anywhere in the world”.

Better Reds than dead: LFC Heroes Club NFT. Source: liverpoolfc.com

‘Lower’ Price Points From $75 Per NFT

The collection will also feature 24 “Legendary” one-of-one editions, one for each player, to be auctioned off individually on March 30. The remaining NFTs will be sold at lower price points (from US$75) in a move the club hopes will make them accessible to its broader fan base.

The LFC collectibles will be available to purchase across a three-day sale window from Wednesday, March 30 to Friday, April 1. Half of the proceeds will go to the LFC Foundation, in addition to 10 percent from the ‘Heroes’ sale and all future resale royalties.

Backlash Begins Within Minutes

Within minutes of the NFT news breaking, however, disgruntled Liverpool supporters took to Twitter to air their misgivings:

Backroom Sports Deals Linking NFTs and Fan Tokens

When FC Barcelona announced its NFT auction in November last year, some claimed it was a desperate measure to offset the club’s US$1.56 billion debt crisis. The move was seen as part of a fire sale that resulted in star player Lionel Messi leaving the club to join Paris Saint Germain, which in itself saw PSG’s token price surge 50 percent. Messi was reportedly paid US$35 million in $PSG fan tokens as part of the transfer deal, and went on to launch his own NFT collection.

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Crypto News Cryptocurrency Law NFTs Real Estate

‘Satoshi Island’ Crypto Utopia Receives 50K Citizenship NFT Applications

The four-man team of entrepreneurs behind the ‘Satoshi Island’ project in the South Pacific claims to have already fielded 50,000 NFT visa applications to become permanent residents of the mooted crypto paradise.

The team’s declared vision is of a fiat-free, true crypto-economy where everything will be paid for in cryptocurrencies and all land ownership on the island represented by non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

As first reported by Crypto News Australia in January, it’s intended that Satoshi Island – so named for the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto – will host events year round, house and headquarter crypto projects, as well as being a gathering place and residence for crypto enthusiasts worldwide.

The Satoshi Five-Year Plan

The Satoshi Island vision took flight during the 2017 bull run, though a tight checklist of objectives had to be met over ensuing years before it could become a reality:

  • the island had to be remote enough for privacy but not so remote that development would be too difficult;
  • it should ideally not be at risk of climate change and be protected from natural disasters; and
  • the slog to find an adequate location was compounded by the knowledge that the team “had to be realistic”.

Options Narrowed Down to Vanuatu

Most importantly, the government managing the territory where the island was located had to be open to the idea of a “crypto city”. After years of searching, the team settled on Vanuatu: “The government showed a willingness to innovate and were open to discussions right away.”

Pacific island nations in general are building a reputation for being crypto-friendly. Nearby, in Tonga, the prospect of Bitcoin becoming legal tender could happen as soon as November this year, while the neighbouring Marshall Islands are open to decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs).

Proposed waterfront prefab villas on Satoshi Island. Source: satoshi-island.com

However, as with any proposed utopia, there are hurdles ahead for the developers of Satoshi Island. Vanuatu passed a law last year that allows companies to gain a special licence to deal with crypto assets. The Vanuatu Financial Services Commission, which provides those licences, recently issued a media release stating that Satoshi Island has not been granted one, and that it “could be a scam”.

Vanuatu’s Finance Minister has said that “proper policies” around cryptocurrency and blockchain still needed to be worked out:

It’s a new form of doing things and from our perspective it’s something Vanuatu will have to think seriously about. We need to have legislations updated so they can absorb the implementation of the cryptocurrencies.

Johnny Koanapo Rasou, Minister of Finance, Vanuatu

Moreover, NFT residency does not automatically confer citizenship of Vanuatu, where the government stipulates that actual citizenship costs US$130,000 for each aficionado who wishes to bid farewell to fiat and say hello to a crypto life in the sun.

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Australia Crypto News Industries NFTs

Qantas Launches NFTs Despite Environmental Pushback

Australian airline Qantas is one of the newest major ASX-listed companies to include a non-fungible token (NFT) offering. The offering, however, has since seen considerable pushback from the community, citing environmental concerns with NFTs and other issues.

World First for Australian Airline

Qantas’s digital collection of memorabilia is a first for any airline to allow users to buy, sell, and collect NFTs and also enable buyers to earn Qantas Points. Holders might also have something extra to look forward to with Qantas stating, “exciting future benefits for Qantas NFT holders [are] under way”.

Chief customer officer Stephanie Tully said customers have been collecting physical Qantas memorabilia for years and NFTs would be the newest iteration. According to its post, the ‘Flying Kangaroo’ will allow cash transactions as well as crypto when it launches the NFT collection mid-year.

A Qantas NFT collection allows us to engage the next generation of aviation and digital art enthusiasts, leveraging blockchain technology to celebrate our heritage and future.

Stephanie Tully, chief customer officer, Qantas

Qantas Customers Take to Twitter

However, very few commentators on Twitter seemed to be as excited as Qantas about its new offering:

NFTs have become popularised as a way for audiences to have a new way of engaging with their favourite brands. On the other hand, some see them as a money grab scheme implemented by businesses to create a new revenue stream:

NFTs have boomed in the past year – according to Chainalysis, in 2021 a minimum of US$44.2 billion was sent to NFT contracts – though they have also come under fire for facilitating greater carbon emissions and running on unsustainable blockchains.

In February, Salesforce employees protested the company’s plan to implement the novel technology. And according to recent statements from WWF and Uber, Bitcoin and NFTs are both still too power-hungry and neither organisation will accept them until they’re greener.

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Crypto Art Cryptocurrencies NFTs

Interest in Crypto Tattoos Up 222% in a Year

Public interest in crypto-related tattoos has boomed with related internet searches reportedly up by 222 percent in the past year. Whether depicting a bitcoin or a play on ‘to the moon’, digital asset-related ink is the new trend:

According to a report authored by ‘Crypto Head’, crypto investors and tattoo fans are creating their own Venn diagram as the overlap of people willing to mix the two passions grows.

The data claims that the phrase “crypto tattoo” was the subject of at least 1,900 internet searches last year. On Instagram, #cryptotattoo was used on 956 posts.

https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/751256781566240094/
Bitcoin neck tattoo. Source: Pinterest
https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/751256781566240094/
Blockchain brand tattoo. Source: Pinterest
https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/751256781566240094/
Matching ‘to the moon’ shoulder tattoos. Source: Pinterest

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; where some want to be branded by their favourite blockchain, others may prefer to simply admire crypto ink from a distance.

NFT Interest Fluctuates

Crypto tattoos may be replacing NFTs as the hot new online trend. With sales sliding, Google Trends data from earlier this month indicated that global interest in NFTs is down by 45 percent in terms of internet searches. Actual sales were down 30 percent, with Solana the only NFT-supporting blockchain to make sales gains.

However, in September 2021, 84 percent of institutional investors believed there was a place for crypto in their portfolios. A lot of the investors surveyed also indicated they would like to be able to invest in crypto-related ETFs.

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DeFi Illegal NFTs Scams Tokens

Crypto Venture Capitalist Loses $1.7 Million in NFT Hot Wallet Phishing Attack

Arthur Cheong, founder of DeFi and Web3-focused crypto venture capitalist firm Defiance Capital, tweeted this week that a hacker had stolen over US$1.7 million worth of NFTs from his crypto wallet.

Pieces stolen include five CloneXs, 17 Azukis, 33 Second Selfs, two Hedgies and two Tsubasa NFTs, according to security firm PeckShield. A total of 59 NFTs were stolen.

Cheong said the unknown hacker compromised his device using a technique known as ‘spear phishing’:

Earlier this month, an unknown hacker began draining NFTs from an Ethereum wallet owned by Cheong, which he later confirmed on Twitter. The hacker then proceeded to sell the stolen NFTs on OpenSea and also transferred other tokens such as wETH, Lido DAO, LooksRare and DYDX to their wallet.

As it stands, the perpetrator’s wallet currently contains about 585 ETH, or around US$1.7 million, that can all be traced back to Cheong’s wallet. This figure may increase as the hacker appears to be still moving funds out of Cheong’s account:

Spear Phishing Email Likely Suspect

Cheong said the hacker used what is called a ‘spear phishing’ email to deploy malware on his device, which then proceeded to extract the seed phrase to his crypto wallet:

Phishing Attacks on the Rise

This is sadly not a unique incident, with the incidence of phishing scams rising dramatically this year. In January, OpenSea lost US$3 million in stolen NFTs. In a similar fashion, US$790,000 worth of Rare Bear NFTs were stolen in a brazen phishing attack just last week.

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Crypto News DeFi NFTs Social media Surveys

Twitter Marketing Report: Crypto and NFT Topics Explode 240%

Twitter Trends 2022 has given us the statistics on the hottest topics on Twitter and has revealed some interesting, but not surprising, results. For instance, talk about non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and crypto topics in general has surged an astonishing 242 percent.

The Twitter report’s findings suggest that the three top trends are:

  • “The Great Restoration”, healing the planet by healing ourselves;
  • “Fan-built Worlds”, digital communities calling the shots; and
  • “Finance Goes Social”, speaking to many of the Gen Z and Millennial population getting into investing – especially in digital assets.

300 Million Tweets About Crypto in the Past Three Months

Twitter users alone have posted almost 300 million tweets regarding digital assets. Twitter’s report revealed its biggest trends over the past two years, and finance – including digital assets – is number one on the list. Financial tweets have gone up by 78 percent year-over-year among average users, meaning the subject has gained traction even among non-professionals who do not work in the industry.

Money matters used to be closely held secrets of the few. But these days, a new crowd’s getting in on the action – and having fun.

Twitter Trends 2022

The most talked-about crypto topics on Twitter include Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple, followed by Cardano, DeFi, Coinbase and Binance.

Discussions of topics such as stablecoins, NFT marketplaces, decentralised apps and decentralised exchanges have ballooned by 242 percent – with DAOs another hot topic under the heading of “user-empowered communities”.

Some Words of Wisdom from Twitter

Twitter offered some advice to businesses and content creators recommending finding ways to make a brand more entertaining, exciting and inclusive. And while companies are dropping NFTs left, right and centre, the social network encourages giving a greater deal of thought to why digital assets are being offered in the first place:

“Don’t blindly jump on the NFT bandwagon – create something that’s meaningful to your community. For example, a sportswear brand didn’t just drop a logo NFT, they put their gear on the hottest NFT avatars to connect two passions their fans care about.”

Seems the NFT Bubble Has Burst (For Now)

The NFT bubble might have finally burst, with weekly NFT sales trending downward and interest in the sector dropping 45 percent over a 30-day period in late January and February 2022. Worldwide Google Trends data shows that interest plunged 45 percent in terms of internet searches. During the second week of January, the search query “NFT” sat comfortably at 100, the highest trend score a query can register, but by early March had dropped almost half to a score of 55.

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Crypto News DAO Ethereum NFTs Tokens

Time Magazine Releases First Ever NFT Magazine Issue, Featuring Vitalik Buterin

Time magazine is set to release its first issue in full non-fungible token (NFT) form, with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin – dubbed the “Prince of Crypto” – on the cover.

The double issue, datelined March 28/April 4, will be launched in collaboration with the LITDAO, an NFT project launched in December 2021 about which little is known. No roadmap has been revealed, nor any use case; one of the very few concrete facts to have surfaced about LITDAO is that it operates with its own native currency, LIT.

LITDAO has reported that LIT Genesis holders will be eligible to receive an airdrop of Time‘s “historic NFT” alongside TIMEPiece Genesis holder. The latter is a Web3 community initiative created by Time, launched in September 2021 with a collection called “Build a Better Future”.

The airdrop will roll out with support from Circle, the company behind stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), with Transient Labs acting as the project’s technical partner.

According to Time, the Buterin issue will “live on the blockchain”, on a decentralised protocol. Holders of the NFT magazine will be able to read the content and interact with it.

Buterin Rails Against ‘$3 Million Monkeys’

Regarding said content, in the cover story interview with Andrew Chow, Buterin expresses concern about the dominance of DeFi and NFTs and the “shameless displays of wealth” driven by collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). He also worries about the rise in transaction fees and “overeager investors”.

In the TIME cover story interview, Buterin worries about “shameless displays of wealth” as exemplified by BAYC owners. Source: investing.com

“The peril is you have these $3 million monkeys and it becomes a different kind of gambling,” Buterin says in reference to BAYC. “There definitely are lots of people that are just buying yachts and Lambos.”

Buterin tells Chow that his vision for the transformative power of Ethereum is at risk of being overtaken by greed:

If we don’t exercise our voice, the only things that get built are the things that are immediately profitable. And those are often far from what’s actually the best for the world.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin

Time Has Mixed History with Ethereum

Time‘s close association with Buterin and the Ethereum blockchain harks back to November last year, when the media giant revealed a deal with Galaxy Digital. As part of the deal, Time would hold ETH on its balance sheet.

Two months earlier, when Time announced a new collection of NFTs offering “unlimited access” to its website throughout 2023, all 4,676 tokens tied to the digital artworks sold out in minutes. But the sale rush also clogged the Ethereum blockchain, sending gas fees through the roof. So much so that buyers spent almost four times as much on transaction fees as they did on the NFTs themselves.

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DeFi Ethereum NFTs

Whoops: $1 Million Valued Clipart Rock NFT Sells for Less Than a Cent

Mistakes are made in the cryptocurrency world, some of which incur a high price. This time, we’re talking about the owner of an NFT who erroneously listed his EtherRock for 444 wei instead of 444 ETH.

The NFT in question is a rock JPEG previously owned by a trader with the Twitter handle of Dino Dealer. The rock was supposed to be listed at 444 ETH, or roughly US$1.2 million, but Dino made the mistake of listing it in wei, the smallest denomination of ETH (1 ETH = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 wei):

Sniper Bot Snaps Up Rock

The NFT was quickly snapped up for less than a cent by a sniper bot. Bots are becoming increasingly popular in NFT listings, as buyers can use them for last-second bidding on auction items, such as on decentralised marketplace OpenSea. There’s a freelance website called Upwork that offers sniper bots for US$200, along with other sniping tools.

A desperate Dino even tried to reach out to “crypto customer service” asking if there was a way to retrieve the rock. As expected, this request was met with jokes from users handing out emails and WhatsApp numbers to Dino. Of course, no one should ever follow up on those dubious numbers or emails:

To Err is Human, You Could Say

Given the immutable nature of the blockchain, it’s highly unlikely Dino will get his rock back unless the new owner of the NFT sympathises with him – also extremely unlikely.

We have seen various examples of costly mistakes such as this, although one might wonder how it could be possible to confuse wei with ETH. One such rookie error led to the sale of a Bored Ape NFT for US$3,000 instead of its intended market price of $300,000.

Another painful example was a mutant ape that sold for 17 USDC instead of 17 ETH – somehow the owner confused both currencies. Keep in mind the owner paid a fee of 2.87 ETH, or US$9,100 at that time.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto Art NFTs

Australian Indigenous Yolngu Artists Are Entering the NFT Space 

Indigenous Australian artists are digitising their work as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to create a new stream of income and share their art on a global marketplace.

Artists from the Yolngu nation in the secluded East Arnhem Land of northern Australia are world-renowned for their drawings connected to nature. For the first time, these artists are venturing into the crypto space by minting their artworks as NFTs.

According to Chainalysis, US$44.2 billion worth of cryptocurrency was sent to ERC-721 and ERC-1155 contracts in 2021 – the typical NFT standards on Solana and Ethereum – and these Australian artists will be accessing a piece of the pie. Blockchain technology will also aid with the copyright of artworks from their community as well as create a new stream of income for local artists.

Preserving Indigenous Art and Culture with Blockchain

The project is being funded by venture capitalist Mark Carnegie and artists from the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka art centre in Yirrkala who will be creating NFTs. The bark paintings of one of the artists, Wukun Wanambi, have been sold all over the world. “I like to try new things, a new way of sharing art to the world,” says Wanambi, whose digitised artworks now being sold online.

Yolngu artist Ishmael Marika. Source: abc.net.au

These works can also be digitally stored and preserved for future generations to appreciate. One of the goals of the project, according to Joseph Brady, the art centre’s Mulka Project director, is to buy more physical work so it can remain in the Yolngu community.

If enough of these are sold, Mulka’s portion of that will go to buying that piece for the museum here […] So the work will stay here at the museum within the community.

Joseph Brady, director, Mulka Project

Sharing Culture

Ishmael Marika, one of the younger accomplished Yolngu artists, hopes that digitising his art will help protect it against forgery and become an asset he can monetise. “We want more of my clan and our tribes to show themselves to the world, so the world can see [us] and carry on our stories,” Marika says.

What is the Yolngu Art Culture? 

The art the Yolngu make represents their clan and all of nature. It is a unique part of their culture, which is why these artists are opting for NFTs. The use case for NFTs as a method to preserve indigenous art and knowledge over a decentralised network makes it a resilient method to keep safe the world’s cultural information.

The designs used by Yolngu artists, whether on paper, bark, áž»arrakitj (hollow logs), or on the body in ceremonial mode, reflect each artist’s clan and country. They are an expression of connection to family, country and to the Wangarr, or period of ancestral creativity. To learn more about the Yolngu art practice, click here.

Last month, the Aboriginal Yidindji Nation launched its own central bank digital currency (CBDC), making it the first indigenous nation on the Australian continent to become fully digitised.

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Gaming Investing NFTs

Favoured Meme Stock ‘GameStop’ Confirms It Will Launch a Premium NFT Platform by July

Video game retailer GameStop, widely known as the company whose stock kickstarted the meme stock investment craze, has announced it intends to launch a premium NFT platform by the end of Q2 2022.

The planned launch date was announced in GameStop’s Q4 2021 earnings call, released on March 17. 

GameStop Eyes Crypto Opportunities

In a further sign of its increased interest in crypto, GameStop also mentioned the significant growth potential it sees in the sector in its 10-K filing, explaining:

As we scale and expand our core offerings we will simultaneously invest in additional growth, including blockchain, digital assets (including non-fungible tokens), Web 3.0 technology, and new destination formats for our stores.

GameStop K-10 Filing

Given its existing status as a well-known video game retailer, GameStop plans to focus its NFT efforts on in-game assets and other game-centric virtual assets, including character skins and in-game real estate.

NFTs Will Launch On Immutable X

Having flagged its intention to enter the NFT space in May 2021, in January 2022 GameStop announced it had chosen to partner with Immutable X its platform. GameSpot has cited Immutable X’s zero gas fees for minting NFTs and its carbon-neutral status as crucial strengths. 

Immutable X is an Ethereum-based layer-2 system built specifically for NFT trading. It uses zero-knowledge rollup technology developed by StarkWare to complete over 9000 NFT transactions per second.