Category: NFTs

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Crypto Art Crypto News Gaming NFTs Solana

Real Life Meets NFTs in World’s First Virtual Blockchain Claw Machine

A new NFT-based gaming marketplace is coming to Solana as SolPugs becomes the first platform to launch a live virtual claw machine on the blockchain.

We are the first live virtual claw machine on the blockchain- the idea is that we will build a gaming arcade that will be fully integrated with the blockchain and where people can win NFTs.

SolPugs spokesperson

SolPugs, a new blockchain-based company, will bring an NFT marketplace to the Solana chain next month. The company aims to build a fully integrated gaming arcade into the blockchain that will enable users to win NFTs.

SolPugs is the latest to bring NFTs into the real world after Crypto News Australia reported in June that the Australian art scene would present physical NFT exhibitions.

South Australian digital media artist Dave Court became the first in his field to stage such an exhibition, bridging the gap between the real world and NFTs. As the NFT world continues to gain in popularity in Australia, be sure to expect more.

NFT Madness Continues

As the NFT market continues to explode, there are no signs of it slowing down any time soon. In addition to its virtual claw machine, SolPugs will also launch its own NFT.

The company will be offering 5,000 uniquely generated pugs, each with more than 70 distinctive attributes, to be made exclusively for the Solana blockchain and SolPugsā€™ NFT Gaming Marketplace. Each pug is drawn by hand by an in-house digital artist.

Our system algorithm is designed to generate a unique pug with every minting session. This way, each of our pugs is unique in its own way and you will never find two identical pugs with us. So you will have 5,000 randomly generated Sol Pugs here with 70-plus different attributes to choose from. Itā€™s going to be a unique experience for our users. 

SolPlugs spokesperson

The company also has a whitelist that people can win, either through its whitelist competition or by playing on SolPugs’ virtual claw machine. Pugs come in five different rarities, ranging from Common to Legendary. When a member mints a pug, it will be assigned a rarity.

After the launch, SolPugs will list the pugs on all major NFT marketplaces, including Solanaart.io, Solsea.io, and Digitaleyes.market.

Aiming to bring utility to its pugs, the company will allow members who hold pugs to post their NFTs in their marketplace. People can then win the NFTs, allowing the seller to reap the rewards.

SolPugs Joins Others in the Digital Arcade Game

SolPugs will join Decentraland in hosting a digital arcade claw machine. Decentraland allows users to play the claw machine by paying a set amount of Mana, after which they can win NFTs such as Crypto Kitties and Axies.  

The below video posted on YouTube explains the digital arcade claw on Decentraland:

Atari Hotels recently announced that it intends to accept its own Atari Token (ATRI) for use on its premises. Although it’s still unclear exactly what they will be used for, they may take the form of digital arcade tokens that allow users to play their favourite games in the Atari gaming playgrounds.

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Ethereum Fantasy Sports NFTs Sorare

Sorare Raises $680 Million to Expand Blockchain-Based Fantasy Football Game

Sorare, the NFT-based fantasy football game, has recently ended its latest fundraising round to the count of US$680 million. The capital gained from the Series B funding round provides the means to create the next giant in sports entertainment.

A Historic Fundraiser

The record-breaking funding round is the largest in the history of French tech and the biggest in Europe for a Series B.

The fundraiser was joined by several interested parties, including Atomico, Bessemer Ventures, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and football players Gerard PiquƩ, Rio Ferdinand, Antoine Griezmann and CƩsar Azpilicueta.

In February, the platform announced it had raised US$50 million in Series A funding from renowned investors such as Benchmark (investor in Twitter, Snap, Instagram or Discord), Antoine Griezmann, Rio Ferdinand, Oliver Bierhoff, Alexis Ohanian and Gary Vaynerchuck.

This shows a massive increase in interest from investors towards the fantasy football game.

Sorare Growing Fast

Sorare’s user base has grown by 900 percent in the past year, with 177 officially licensed clubs including some of the most famous in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Liverpool and Juventus, 6000 licensed footballers, and 600,000 registered users making waves in the NFT and sports industry. Check out Crypto News Australia‘s independent review of the football trading card game.

The Sorare platform.

The platform has also recently signed a five-year partnership with La Liga and is looking to give back to the people by lending support to community led-football programs, aspiring entrepreneurs, and women in sport.

Sorare Set For Major Expansion

This funding will help deliver its key objective, which is to create the next world champion in sports entertainment by leveraging NFTs. To achieve this, the funds have been allocated to:

  • Sign new partnerships: bringing the top 20 football leagues onboard along with the top 50 national teams.
  • Speed up mobile and marketing: the fantasy game will be a mobile first experience that fans globally can play.
  • Expand into new sports: Sorare has received interest from leagues and fans worldwide to replicate its model in other sports, and plans to roll out new sports in 2022.

Built on the Ethereum blockchain, the platform used to suffer high transaction costs at high volume, though with layer-2 technology called Starkware it has helped to scale transactions and keep gas fees low to curb the problem.

Crypto News Australia also has a guide for beginners and fans who are interested in fantasy football, with the twist of trading and selling NFTs to gain added value from the hobby.

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Crypto News Ethereum NFTs

Snoop Dogg Reveals He Owns $17 Million worth of NFTs

American rapper Snoop Dogg is in the headlines after revealing heā€™s the person behind the Twitter handle Cozomo deā€™ Medici – until now, the mystery owner of a US$17 million NFT collection.

In a September 21 tweet, the superstar US rapper revealed his alter ego, an NFT collector who joined Twitter only last month. 

At that time, the account didnā€™t have any ties to the rapper as such, and its pseudonymous owner steadily tweeted about his journey as a collector and the large sums of money spent on his NFT collection.

As per DappRadarā€™s portfolio estimate tool, deā€™ Mediciā€™s wallet stores US$17 million worth of collectibles. Cozomo’s wallet also owns the Snoop x Nyan Cat NFT that the rapper is currently using as his profile pic.

Superstar Rapper Rubs Shoulders With CryptoPunks

Snoop first flagged his interest in crypto assets in an April interview with Vanity Fair magazine. His portfolio consists mainly of CryptoPunks – a series of unique avatars and the first NFTs developed on the Ethereum blockchain, the most valuable of which is priced at US$4.6 million based on current market value. He also owns 10 Meebits, a series of unique 3D voxel characters, and several pieces of Tom Sachs Rocket Factory NFTs, the same collection that beer giant Budweiser bought into last month.

Snoop’s own NFT collection has been released on crypto exchange and NFT marketplace Crypto.com, with the first NFT titled “A Journey With the Dogg”. Crypto.com has put together numerous artists keen to explore the emerging NFTs market. As well as the Dogg, they include Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One, Axel Mansoor, Lionel Richie and more.

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Crypto News Ethereum NFTs

Crypto Portfolio NFT Wrapper Project Emblem Vault Pumps 225%

The non-fungible token (NFT) project Emblem Vault has soared 225 percent over the past month to become the second-largest NFT project by sales volume as reported by NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam.

NFT Ranking by Sales Volume. Source: CryptoSlam

What is Emblem Vault? 

Launched by Emblem Finance on Bitcoin and Ethereum in September 2020, Emblem Vault is a tokenised multi-asset wallet that wraps crypto portfolios into a single NFT token.

Emblem Vault collection on Open Sea

Each Emblem Vault is an Ethereum-based NFT that functions as a multi-asset wallet allowing users to move around and trade entire portfolios of NFTs and traditional cryptos, including those from other chains, as a single token.

Emblem wraps up tokens as modern ERC-721 NFTs. These are the same type of token trading on popular NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, though Emblem allows collectors to trade NFTs that predate the ERC-721 NFT standards.

NFT Boom Continues

Emblem Vault has gained traction as the NFT boom continues. Sales volumes have made immense gains as more people continue to discover the project, and collectors are seeking out OG NFTs.

Pepe the Frog, one of the classic NFTs, has appeared in Emblem Vault. A vintage RarePepe NFT that portrays a cartoon ā€˜Pepe’ of Satoshi Nakomoto sold for 144 ETH, worth around US$490,000 at the time. And EthPepe, a ā€˜Pepeā€™ portraying Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, sold for a whopping 100 Wrapped Ethereum (WETH), worth about US$300,000.  

Emblem Vault still lags US$9.5 million behind the biggest NFT project, Axie Infinity. Yet the project is still US$4 million ahead of other NFT projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club, which sold a collection of NFTs for almost US$25 million earlier this month.

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Charity Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs

Freddie Mercury NFTs Go On Sale for AIDS Charity

Four non-fungible token (NFT) artworks inspired by Freddie Mercury are to be auctioned off for charity to mark what would have been the late Queen singer’s 75th birthday.

The quartet of works by transatlantic artists Blake Kathryn, Chad Knight (US), Mat Maitland and MBSJQ (UK) will be sold in a timed auction on digital art marketplace SuperRare over 75 hours from September 20, according to the organisers.

Three are portraits of Mercury while the fourth is a dreamlike depiction of a white grand piano with a crown on its stool, surrounded by a pond of swimming goldfish (see video below).

Proceeds will go the Mercury Phoenix Trust, an AIDS charity established by Queen founding members Brian May and Roger Taylor and band manager Jim Beach in the singer’s memory.

The collection is curated by LA-based 6 Agency, whose co-founder Georgio Constantinou commented:

Six was honoured to curate an incredible collection of artists to celebrate the life and impact of Freddie Mercury. After meeting with the Mercury Phoenix Trust, we knew that if Freddie were alive today, he would be excited about the creative potential of the NFT space.

Georgio Constantinou, co-founder, Six Agency

Mercury, who studied graphic art and design before joining Queen in 1970, would have turned 75 on September 5. He died from AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991.

Mercury Was Fully Qualified When It Came to Art Appreciation

Before joining Queen, Mercury attained a degree in graphic art and design and later became an avid collector of classical and contemporary art and glass works. He was recognised as having what experts considered one of the world’s finest collections of Japanese antique woodblock prints.

The singer left a very simple creative brief to the world on his passing: ā€œYou can do whatever you want with my work, just never make me boring.ā€ This brief was given to the four digital artists for each to create an NFT artwork inspired by different aspects of Mercury’s flamboyant persona.

The auction goes live at 0800 hrs on September 20 and the collection can be viewed at www.superrare.com/freddiemercury

As well as raising money for charity, NFTs are also being sold in support of wildlife conservation, as Crypto News Australia reported last month.

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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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Crypto News NFTs

OpenSea Confirms Insider Trading, Head of Product Development Resigns

OpenSeaā€™s product lead, Nate Chastain, has been accused of insider trading of NFTs promoted on the front page of the platform, allegations confirmed by the OpenSea team.Ā He has since resigned from his position.

The accusations were first made by a Twitter user who discovered that Chastain had been snapping up NFTs for a while.

Chastain reportedly bought NFTs using secret Ethereum burner wallets before they were unloaded on the homepage, benefiting from the front-page hype spike and then selling them for a quick profit. This is similar to when a token’s price boosts after getting listed in a crypto exchange such as Coinbase or Binance.

According to data from OpenSea, Chastain is the owner of CryptoPunk #3501, purchased for 26.98 ETH. This NFT revealed his address to the community, allowing anyone to see the transactions. What gave Chastain away was that he made the mistake of sending the profits to that public address.

It also appears this isn’t the first time Chastain has been caught snapping NFTs:

OpenSea Confirms Insider Trading Allegations

OpenSea confirmed the allegations in a blog post. “This behaviour does not represent the teamā€™s core values,ā€ the team said.

Yesterday we learned that one of our employees purchased items that they knew were set to display on our front page before they appeared there publicly. We are taking this very seriously and are conducting an immediate and thorough review of this incident so we have a full understanding of the facts and additional steps we need to take.

OpenSea blog post

While OpenSea has seen record growth over recent months, this event has once again opened up criticism of the protocol. Some users were calling out market manipulation and centralisation, yet the most strident critics are NFT collectors – as Crypto News Australia reported last week, over US$100k worth of NFTs were recently lost due to an OpenSea bug found in the protocol by a user.

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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 Googleā€™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 ā€œamped to welcome Google to Flow Blockchainā€.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto.com Fan Tokens NFTs Sports

Crypto.com Inks $35M Deal with PSG Football Club with ‘Significant Portion’ Paid in CRO Token

Renowned European football club Paris Saint-Germain has signed a multi-year deal worth up to 30 million euro (US$35 million) with Crypto.com to make the exchange its official cryptocurrency platform partner.

The partnership will be celebrated by the release of exclusive Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on Crypto.comā€™s native NFT platform.

According to a blog post from Crypto.com, it has partnered with PSG with the exchange paying a large part of the sponsorship in Crypto.com coin (CRO), its native cryptocurrency.

As of September 17, the PSG fan token will be available for purchase by fans on Crypto.com. The token recently surged almost 62 percent after superstar Lionel Messi left Barcelona FC to join Paris Saint-Germain. Messi was reportedly paid up to US$35 million worth of the PSG fan token as part of his ā€œwelcome packageā€ to the French club.

Our mission since day one has been to accelerate the worldā€™s transition to cryptocurrency. We do so by finding the best partners in the world, and Paris Saint-Germain is second to none … Between the brand visibility, stadium and team access, and collaborative development of NFTs, I have no doubt weā€™ll create new and exciting experiences for football fans around the world.

Kris Marszalek, Crypto.com co-founder/CEO

Crypto.com Takes a Shot at Football After Partnering With Other Major Sports

Crypto.com has led the industry in sports partnerships, recently announcing global deals with the UFC, Formula One and Lega Serie A. The exchange became the first crypto platform to partner with an F1 team and an NHL team, and through its new partnership with PSG it aims to bring crypto to the fans.

PSG is the most successful club in French football, with an overall trophy count of 44 including seven of the last nine championships in Franceā€™s top professional league.

With this partnership, Paris Saint-Germain demonstrates once more its vision and leadership as a pioneer in areas such as lifestyle, esports and digital. It is an exciting time for cryptocurrency and we cannot wait to work with Crypto.com to bring new experiences to all of the clubā€™s fans.

Marc Armstrong, chief partnerships officer, Paris Saint-Germain
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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 Solanaā€™s native token has already taken off in response, with its market capitalisation vaulting over XRP and Dogecoin to become the worldā€™s sixth-largest cryptocurrency. Its total value is now US$54 billion compared with XRPā€™s $43.5bn and DOGEā€™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.