Category: NFTs

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Crypto News Ethereum NFTs Real Estate

DAO to Buy Blockbuster Video and Offer Decentralised Film Streaming

Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) and attempting to buy historical artifacts are catching on in late 2021. Last month, ConstitutionDAO attempted to purchase a rare first-edition copy of the US Constitution, and now a new DAO, BlockbusterDAO, is trying to buy one of the best-known pre-digital brands of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Big Plans for Blockbuster LLC

After ConstitutionDAO was outbid by former Citadel founder Kenneth Griffin, a new DAO – BlockbusterDAO – announced its intention to purchase the iconic video brand. According to its Twitter feed, the DAO wants to ultimately create a decentralised film streaming service, with additional plans for movie financing and production down the line.

The thread also explained why BlockbusterDAO intends to go through with the purchase:

The Blockbuster brand is not only nostalgic, it’s a historic landmark in the history of film. Despite its 1/1 brand recognition, the company was destroyed by terrible leadership with an inability to pivot and make dynamic business decisions.

BlockbusterDAO, Twitter

To achieve its goals, BlockbusterDAO wants to raise US$5 million to purchase the brand from Dish Network, a US television provider which acquired Blockbuster in 2011. The DAO aims to raise the finance by selling BlockbusterDAO non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for 0.13 ETH each (US$494 at the time of writing).

Although ConstitutionDAO was unsuccessful in its efforts to purchase a copy of the US Constitution, the group is now giving donors a choice – to either accept refunds, or remain in the DAO and receive a “We The People” (WTP) governance token.

DAOs: the New-Age Crowdfunding Solution

As DAOs continue to gain popularity for various reasons, capital raising seems to be the most prominent. For those wishing to buy a National Basketball Association (NBA) team, or an island in the Caribbean, for instance, but don’t necessarily have US$50 million lying around, DAOs are the perfect way for individuals to realise such dreams.

DAOs – the new-age crowdfunding solution – show what a community of people can do when they band together to achieve a collective goal.

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Crypto News Gaming NFTs Scams Solana Tokens

SolGame NFT Rug Pull, Website and Social Media Shut Down

SolGame, a decentralised P2E (Play-2-Earn) NFT-focused project on Solana, appears to have pulled the rug after investors reported that the protocol’s social media channels and official website were shut down, denying them access to their money.

SolGame Offline – Developer Identified

On Christmas Day, a Twitter user by the name of Millesimal reported he had lost his money on Solgame after the official website, solgame.org, was shut down and the Discord channel deleted. The user managed to track down the developer, but there isn’t much information on either his whereabouts or his persona.

The project promoted the game using the voice actor of the Squid Game frontman and other promoters such as Plasma Crypto and NFT YouTuber Pingue. The presale was conducted and tokens sold out quickly, but the project was drifting away from customers and ultimately decided to delete all communication channels.

Yet Another Rug on the Solana Network?

Solana has been a fast gainer in the crypto market, with many innovative developments and interesting projects coming to the platform. Just last week, Crypto News Australia published a list of five interesting Solana NFT projects launching soon.

But scammers have tried to take advantage of the rising popularity of NFT projects on the network. On August 14, Solana suffered its first and biggest rugpull to date after Luna Yield, a cross-chain yield aggregator, stole nearly US$10 million from liquidity pools and quickly deleted its official website.

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Blockchain Crypto News NFTs

5 Xmas NFT Projects Launching This Christmas

‘Tis the season for NFTs, and the gifts just keep on coming. Earlier this month, Crypto News Australia published a guide on the five most interesting NFT projects launching on the Solana blockchain, as well as five exciting projects from the latest THETA hackathon.

As our gift to you, we’ve now created a guide to five Xmas NFT projects launching this Christmas, most incorporating a charity angle.

1. Santa Apes Christmas Club

Have a simian Christmas with Santa Apes, and help a needy family while you’re at it.

Santa Apes Christmas Club is a unique collection of 10,000 NFTs minted on the Ethereum blockchain and available for purchase on OpenSea. Santa Apes offers users unique utility, including 25 days of Christmas giveaways, raffles, access to a second secret collection, and a whitelist of future partnered projects. Five percent of mint sales and 10 percent of royalties from the project will be donated to families in need for Christmas using Fidelity Charity.

2. Santa’s Reindeers

A percentage of the Santa’s Reindeers mint will aid Mexican orphanages and shelters.

Santa’s Reindeers are a collection of 999 reindeers that all live on the Solana network. The project was created with the goal of innovation in the NFT realm and to give holders utility beyond the digital world. That said, the project will donate a percentage of the mint to orphanages and shelters in Mexico in an effort to help those in need have a better Christmas.

3. Solana Santa Business (SSB)

Children’s organisations around the globe will benefit from 10 percent of the SSB mint.

For those users who missed Solana Money Business, creators have brought you SSB. The project, built atop Solana, is a collection of 3,333 Santa generative NFTs with Christmas NFT gifts, a play-to-earn game, and charities inbuilt. NFTs all consist of 200 unique traits. The project will also donate 10 percent of the mint to children’s organisations around the globe.

4. Crypto Clans of Santas (CCoS)

Christmas combat with Crypto Clans of Santas.

A turn-based combat video game on the Cardano blockchain, CCoS can be played on any internet browser with two to four players (1vs1, 2vs2, or 1vs1vs1vs). Users compose a team of five fighters in the form of NFTs they retain in their Cardano wallets. Players can have as many fighters as they want, but can only use five in a fight unless they have an NFT boost which enables players to use more. Extra fighters can also be hired should the player not have enough.

5. Snowman Army

The uniquely hand-drawn Snowman Army figures.

Snowman Army is a collection of 100 Snowman NFTs which all reside on the Ethereum blockchain and are available for purchase on OpenSea. All NFTs are hand-drawn and not generated.

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Bitcoin Crypto News DeFi Metaverse NFTs

Jack Dorsey Causes Twitter Storm, Calls Web 3.0 a Centralised Venture Capital Playground

Following his recent departure from Twitter, many suspected Jack Dorsey would be spending his time on Bitcoin after saying earlier this year, “I don’t think there is anything more important in my lifetime to work on”. While his plans remain under wraps, Dorsey ignited a Twitter storm after criticising Web 3.0 as being centralised and for the benefit of venture capitalists.

The Promise of Web 3.0

Web 3.0 envisions a future state of the internet based on decentralised public blockchains where users own and govern sections of the internet, rather than requiring access through centralised entities such as Google or Facebook.

Unlike Web 2.0 where users are the product and unable to own a piece of the internet, Web 3.0 is “owned by the community” and “trustless” in the sense that an intermediary isn’t required for transactions.

Among other things, Web 3.0 includes decentralised finance (DeFi), a favourite among venture capital firms at the moment and a sector into which enormous sums of money have been ploughed.

Web 3.0 Decentralised?

Web 3.0 promises a decentralised version of the virtual world featuring public blockchains, metaverse technology, non-fungible tokens and DeFi free from the grasp of centralised power sources. But how much of this is true?

One place to start is with the data. Earlier this year, Messari published a report illustrating the initial token allocations for some of the most popular blockchains. Evidently, insiders such as venture capital firms, founders and foundations represent the bulk of initial allocations in most cases, suggesting that they may not offer the promise of decentralised governance purported.

Initial token allocation for public blockchains. Source: Messari

The crux of Dorsey’s criticism is simple. Venture capitalist firms (VCs) frequently fund Web 3.0 projects in direct competition with genuinely decentralised alternatives such as 100 percent initial coin offerings. By owning a controlling stake, they are able to pressure blockchain co-founders and influence the direction of the project. In addition, as insiders, VCs are well-placed to pump their bags and time their exit at the expense of retail investors.

Naturally, Twitter’s favourite billionaire troll couldn’t resist commenting too:

Taking a step back from the Twitter storm, it’s clear in the end that Dorsey feels as if Web 3.0 is decentralised in name only. While he quite obviously is not opposed to centralisation or venture capital – see Twitter and Square – he simply wants people to know what they are getting into.

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Airdrop Crypto News Hackers NFTs Solana

Twitch Co-Founder’s NFT Drop Went Badly, Users Lose $154,000 in Discord Scam

Fractal, a Solana-based NFT marketplace created by Twitch co-founder Justin Kan, has lost roughly US$150,000 worth of SOL after suffering a security breach this week.

Ahead of its debut, Fractal had around 100,000 users on its platform waiting for the NFT airdrop, but someone managed to hack the startup’s Discord channel, specifically the announcement bot, causing it to send out fraudulent links to a website that used the ‘i’ instead of an ‘l’, as in “Fractai” – prompting them to pay for non-existent NFTs.

Kan acknowledged the situation on Twitter, urging users to not follow any link in the Discord channel.

On the other hand, Fractal said it was working to “make things right” and will reportedly reimburse affected users.

Discord Scams on the Rise

Fractal users can only be patient and hope to be reimbursed sometime soon. Some protocols have had to reimburse their users after their platforms were attacked – such was the case with Animoca, which had to repay users 265 ETH after its Discord channel was hacked last month.

A few hours prior to the Fractal incident, another Solana-based project was hacked for over 1.3 million worth of SOL. The project, called Monkey Kingdom, suffered a similar security breach on Discord.

One of the biggest and most frustrating rugs for the Solana community occurred in October when an alleged 17-year-old artist promised to deliver 8000 NFT artworks on the project’s Discord channel but failed to deliver and instead absconded with US$500,000 worth of investors’ funds.

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Blockchain Crypto News Gaming Industries Metaverse NFTs

Report Reveals NFT Gaming Generated $2.3 Billion in Q3 Alone

A report published by the blockchain game alliance (BGA) shows that non-fungible token (NFT) games generated billions in revenue in the third quarter and generally saw remarkable growth throughout the year.

According to the report, the third quarter of 2021 was dominated by NFT gaming, with 2.5 million Unique Active Wallets (UAWs) connected to blockchain dApps on average “making blockchain games responsible for half of all blockchain usage”.

With the surge in NFT games, the sector accumulated US$2.32 billion in revenue between July and September, representing 22 percent of total NFT trading volume industry-wide for that period.

The report also cited DappRadar’s data showing a 6,566 percent increase in daily UAWs interacting with game-related smart contracts, rising from 23,100 in Q3 2020 to 1.54 million daily in Q3 2021. However, UAW numbers do not translate to unique users, since a single individual might use multiple wallets to interact with a single dApp.

The Metaverse Raking in Digital Dollars

The metaverse has drawn much attention since a few major names in the tech industry mentioned they were dipping their toes in. The industry was also fuelled by virtual land sales that hit US$42.6 million and are continuing to grow; the market cap for virtual world dApps reached a new all-time high, surpassing US$4.6 billion at the end of November.

Blockchain gaming has firmly established itself as the industry’s darling. With the consumer growth participating in blockchain games, dApp and gaming trends will come together into something even bigger and potentially all-encompassing: the metaverse.

Dragos Dunica, co-founder, DappRadar

Recently, venture capital firm Galaxy Interactive raised US$325 million to focus on gaming startups and interactive technology. The spark of interest hasn’t just been for investors, but also the general public. As the year moved on there was a noticeable increase in web searches for the terms “metaverse” and “play-to-earn”.

Online mentions of metaverse, play-to-earn and NFT. Source Meltwater

The Issue with NFT Games

According to those working in the industry, many of the current challenges faced in the industry are caused by:

  • regulatory uncertainty;
  • the need for user education;
  • technology limitations;
  • poor user experience; and
  • gameplay quality (or lack of).

The majority of respondents (52 per cent) stated that regulatory uncertainty was their biggest concern and the industry’s most significant challenge, since in-game assets – if not structured properly – can be treated as securities under some laws and could cause unwanted complications.

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Crypto News Crypto Wallets Metaverse NFTs Social media

Instagram CEO Admits It is “Exploring” NFTs

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has revealed the social network giant could possibly integrate NFT features to its platform, as per a Q&A posted on his Stories.

Nothing Official … Yet

During the Q&A, a user asked Mosseri his thoughts about NFTs and if there was any chance they would soon be integrated into Instagram. Messari tweeted that while there’s nothing official yet, the platform is “actively exploring” NFTs and how to take the best out of the space.

Nothing to announce yet but we are definitely actively exploring NFTs and how we can make them more accessible to a broader audience. I think it’s an interesting place that we can play … and also a way to hopefully help creators.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

Instagram Has Been Working Quietly on NFT Collectibles

Rumours of the Meta-owned photo-sharing giant exploring the NFT market started in early 2021 when digital artist Sean Williams posted a Twitter thread claiming that the app was building an NFT platform and reaching out to digital artists in the community.

It wouldn’t come as a surprise if Instagram announced support for NFTs anytime soon, considering the extant NFT boom and the rapid expansion of the Metaverse, propelled by Facebook’s decision to rebrand itself to Meta.

On top of that, app developer Alessandro Paluzzi has stated numerous times that Instagram was already working towards the integration of digital wallets such as MetaMask, Coinbase and Novi.

Social Media Giants Moving Toward Crypto

The crypto community is witnessing social media giants embracing crypto and blockchain technology, with Jack Dorsey’s Twitter one of the biggest advocates. Twitter Crypto is the name of the recently created team in charge of bringing blockchain, DApps (decentralised applications), and all things crypto to the platform for a variety of use cases.

The NFT space is expanding fast, but of course not everybody is an expert on the topic, a reason why so many scammers are taking advantage of boom to fool naive investors. To help fight theft, Adobe is preparing a tool that will assist users in proving that the person selling an NFT is the actual owner.

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Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Metaverse NFTs Retail

You Can Own a Sushi Shop on the Gold Coast as an NFT, If You Want

Fancy owning a business where you not only get to keep all the net profits but are not liable for any losses? And you’re not even required to be onsite but have staff and management to take care of day-to-day operations on your behalf?

Sounds too good to be true, but Australian food hospitality brand Sushi Sushi is the first retailer in the world to offer a store for sale via cryptocurrency, with all of the above benefits as part of the deal.

For a cool million AUD in a choice or combination of bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), Cardano (ADA) or Solana (SOL), anyone over 18 can become the new owner of Sushi Sushi’s store on busy Cavill Avenue in Surfers Paradise on Queensland’s Gold Coast, with a non-fungible token (NFT) to prove it.

Munching into the Metaverse

According to Sushi Sushi CEO and director Scott Meneilly, the brand is “entering the metaverse” with this sale. “You have to innovate or die, and part of this is about stepping outside of your comfort zone and pushing the minds of others,” he says.

We see a massive opportunity in using blockchain, and we felt that selling a franchise store using crypto was a great way to let people know we are serious about playing in this space.

Scott Meneilly, CEO and director, Sushi Sushi

The successful franchisee will not need to physically run the business, Meneilly says, as Sushi Sushi will take care of daily management and operation while the buyer receives all the net profit. The buyer will also not be responsible for any losses.

We believe that this is the future and that people will follow our lead. We want to innovate in this space and create a groundswell of new opportunity. I am a crypto enthusiast and I believe this is a currency that needs to be approached, seriously and respectfully, and we feel the best way to underscore this is with a serious business transaction.

Scott Meneilly, CEO and director, Sushi Sushi

Before becoming CEO of Sushi Sushi, Meneilly was the chief executive of Boost Juice and previously ran Australia’s largest tanning salon business, Body Bronze, between 2002 and 2008.

Check the Fine Print

If you’re thinking of visiting the Sushi Sushi website to register your interest, prospective franchisees should be aware of the following details listed in the fine print:

  • You will be part of a “joint venture” with Sushi Sushi by buying its Cavill Avenue business in crypto to the value of A$1 million.
  • You will receive 100 percent of the net profits from Sushi Sushi Cavill Ave (sales revenue minus total operating costs, being all expenses incurred in operating the store, including a management fee payable to Sushi Sushi) [Crypto News Australia‘s italics].
  • You will receive an exclusive one-of-one NFT of Sushi Sushi Cavill Ave (although said NFT is “currently in development and will be shown directly to the purchaser before being released for public viewing”.

As they say in the classics, caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). Just last week, Crypto News Australia reported that Australian auction house Lloyds was auctioning 50 NFTs of classic ’70s Aussie muscle car the Holden Torana A9X. That’s virtually one every week between now and next Christmas.

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Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs

NFT Data Provider to Sell CryptoPunk with Business Attached

Non-fungible token (NFT) data provider DegenData.io will be auctioning its CryptoPunk, with the buyer of the NFT finding business IP and all supporting assets attached.

On December 20, DegenData announced the January 1 auction of CryptoPunk #5761, and as a twist “the new owner of this Punk will have the rights to claim DegenData product and assets”.

CryptoPunk 5671. Source: Lavalabs

The CryptoPunk will be auctioned for 420.69 ETH, or nearly US$1.7 million at the time of writing. This price is only a fraction of record-holding CryptoPunk #7523, which was auctioned for a record US$11.8 million by Sotheby’s in June.

According to the Twitter thread:

We see the lines of what NFTs are beginning to blur. Digital and physical worlds are intertwined now. NFTs aren’t just profile pictures. They are becoming the value of what you create around them. It is time for us to push the space to think more about what NFTs represent.

DegenData tweet

Why Sell the Platform?

DegenData (DGD) is owned by Pink Swan Trading, Inc (PST), which owns another brand and is developing another crypto analytics product called Genesis Volatility. The owners want to sell DGD and use the proceeds to further develop Genesis Volatility, since the team feels it can be pioneers in the nascent DeFi sector.

Our team feels strongly that we can be pioneers in crypto options analytics and pioneers in DeFi crypto options; for that reason we decided to sell DGD and use the proceeds to help build Genesis Volatility to its full potential, especially as we dig deeper into the DeFi world.

PST team statement
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Crypto News DeFi E-commerce NFTs

Shopify to Offer Merchants NFT Minting Services

Shopify has opened its non-fungible token (NFT) beta that allows participants to mint and trade their own branded NFTs on its platform. The multinational e-commerce company has partnered with blockchain company GigLabs to integrate NFT utilities on its platform.

Shopify CEO Tobias LĂĽtke announced the release on December 16, having previously shown interest in the DeFi and crypto space.

The Shopify application is built on Flow, a decentralised blockchain, and for the time being the “NFT Beta program” will only be available to US-based merchants on Shopify Plus. Participants will be able to buy the digital collectibles with Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, crypto payment gateways, credit/debit cards, and others. Users can also choose on which blockchain they want their NFTs minted, including Ethereum, Polygon, Near and Flow.

NFTs for Branding and Customer Engagement

Earlier in the year, Shopify made it possible to sell NFTs on its platform but now users will be able to access a host of additional functionalities. Included among these will be the ability to “forge [their] own branded experience” by minting NFTs, scheduling airdrops, memberships, and content-gating.

The platform has simplified much of the convoluted procedure required to get your hands on an NFT. Customers can easily claim their NFTs via email and add them directly to their wallets from there. Other companies, such as the entertainment company Superplastic, have praised the application for helping with a successful NFT drop for their brand.

Shopify’s platform is f****** amazing. It helped Superplastic and our partner Christie’s create a massively successful NFT drop for Janky and Guggimon.

Paul Budnitz, founder and CEO, Superplastic

NFT Industry Continues to Boom

Just last month, leading NFT marketplace OpenSea surpassed US$10 billion in all-time trading volume, marking quite an achievement since its total volume trading for all of 2020 was just US$21 million.

Other massive multinational companies have also jumped aboard the bandwagon. For example, sports apparel giant Nike flagged its interest in NFTs earlier this week with the acquisition of RTFKT, a digital arts studio specialising in NFT collectibles.