Category: NFTs

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Crypto News Ethereum Gas NFTs

Trader Loses $13,000 Trying to Buy Ethereum Token – Out of Gas Error!

Cats have choked the Ethereum network once again, but this time it isn’t CryptoKittys but Stoner Cats – the hot new NFT collection of feline characters from the much-anticipated animated series Stoner Cats, developed by actor/producer Mila Kunis and guest-starring Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Fans were at the mercy of an Ethereum gas war as 10,420 Stoner Cats NFTs sold out at 0.35 ETH (about US$837) each within 40 minutes. But some fans were left without their money and without a cat. A post titled Some poor guy loses $13k in fees for a failed transaction appeared on reddit, showing how one buyer lost 5.8 ETH (US$13,916) in a single transaction fee trying to buy his Stoner Cat token.

Stoner Cat, Baxter. Source: stonercats.com

Dune Analytics reported that many others suffered the same fate, showing that 344.6 ETH (US$825,000) were lost to failed transactions. According to DeFi news site The Defiant, many users lost trying to mint their Stoner Cats NFTs (20 was the maximum allowed) without manually adjusting the gas limit in Metamask. Those whose bids were placed earlier didn’t have enough gwei to pay for the entire transaction, which caused the transactions to fail.

Once again the Ethereum network could not meet the high demand of a popular release, as too many users caused gas prices to be pushed higher, resulting in failed transactions and lost funds to exuberant gas fees.

It’s possible that Stoner Cat developers failed to anticipate the demand for the project and set the minimum gas price too low. This is something that needs to be considered moving forward for fundraising efforts such as this, to avoid leaving supporting fans out of pocket.

Stoner Cats is the first TV show of this kind to be entirely funded by NFTs. The show raised over US$8 million on Wednesday through the sale of the Stoner Cats NFTs. The production team – headed by known crypto lover Ashton Kutcher and wife Mila Kunis – plans to release a further 3,000 NFTs per episode.

The series’ first episode, “Stoned Awakening”, is set to premiere today, July 30. Watch the Stoner Cats trailer on Youtube here.

How ETH Gas Fees Work 

When a transaction fails on the Ethereum network, users are still charged. This is a common complaint from frustrated users of the biggest blockchain in DeFi. Etherscan will provide an estimate of how long it will take for a transaction to go through, but when the network is overloaded users may experience the dreaded processing loop, eventually resulting in the status: Fail.

The insanely expensive gas fees on the Ethereum network have seen many opting into other blockchains such as the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), where fees are much lower. In February, ETH gas fees hit all-time highs of up to US$20,000.

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Crypto News NFTs Tokens

Van Gogh, Da Vinci and Monet Paintings to be Tokenised for Auction

Binance’s NFT marketplace is collaborating with the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to create tokenised collectibles based on the works of renowned artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.

Binance announced on July 27 that it will make and distribute non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in concert with the museum by the end of August. The auction will be accessible to all Binance users.

Among the iconic works in the NFT collection are da Vinci’s Madonna Litta, fellow Italian artist Giorgione’s Judith, Dutch master van Gogh’s Lilac Bush, Composition VI by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky and French impressionist Monet’s A Corner of the Garden at Montgeron.

Two NFT Copies for Each Artwork

The Hermitage announced that each artwork will have two NFT copies. The first will be retained by the museum, while the second will be auctioned off. All proceeds from auction sales will be transferred to the State Hermitage Museum.

According to Mikhail Piotrovsky, general director of the Hermitage, tokenising these masterpieces will “revolutionise” access to the museum’s collections.

New technologies, in particular blockchain, have opened a new chapter in the development of the art market, led by the ownership and the guarantee of this ownership.

Mikhail Piotrovsky, general director, State Hermitage Museum

Another Step Towards Digitalisation

Helen Hai, head of Binance NFT, says the project highlights the value of blockchain technology and NFTs as the world moves toward digitalisation.

Recognition of blockchain technology and NFTs by one of the largest museums in the world is another step towards global digitalisation … Together, we are making history.

Helen Hai, head, Binance NFT

Last month, Hobart’s Museum of Art & Philosophy launched Australia’s first NFT gallery in the Tasmanian capital. Just weeks later, multimedia artist Dave Court became the first in his field to stage a physical NFT exhibition in his home state of South Australia, and one of the first in the southern hemisphere.

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Crypto News Ethereum NFTs

Crowd-Funded Ethereum Documentary Raises $2.3 Million in ETH

Documentary project Ethereum: The Infinite Garden has raised 1,036 ETH in just three days to complete its fundraising proposal to create the first feature-length documentary about Ethereum.

The original fundraising goal of 750 ETH (US$1.7 million) was surpassed in a matter of days, finishing up at 1,036 ETH ($US2.3 million). These funds will finance the documentary that will feature co-founder Vitalik Buterin and key members of the Ethereum Foundation and the wider community.

The Garden That Grows On Forever

In this film, we approach Ethereum as an “infinite garden”. Instead of thinking of Ethereum as a machine controlled by a central brain, we see it as a decentralised ecosystem with soil, plants and insects that need to be cared for in order to grow.

Ethereum: The Infinite Garden official website

Ethereum: The Infinite Garden will “explore the innovative real-world applications of the Ethereum blockchain, the die-hard community of enthusiasts and developers, and its creator, Vitalik Buterin, whose vision for the internet has the potential to change the world”, according to the project proposal.

The film will be directed by Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci, creators of features for HBO, Netflix and National Geographic that have been screened at major international film festivals. Production will be managed by Optimist, a Los Angeles-based independent studio.

NFT Movie Posters with Film Credits Embedded

Funds were raised by allowing contributors to bid for their own animated movie posters alongside a number of other rewards, such as receiving credits in the film. The animated posters were created by well-known digital artist pplpleasr, who has created digital effects for movies such as Wonder Woman, Batman v Superman, and Star Trek Beyond. The top three contributors received one-off posters with unique colouring, lighting and exclusive producer titles embedded into the credits section.

Unique movie posters of the top three contributors. Source: Infinite Garden Twitter

Pre-Production Under Way

After the wildly successful fundraising campaign, the team is now entering the pre-production phase where it will establish connections with members of the Ethereum Foundation and the wider community. The team is aiming to have a rough cut of the film done by the northern summer of 2022, and all going to plan it will premiere in the winter of 2023.

No Lack of Vitalik

Buterin is everywhere at the moment, especially in the arts and entertainment industry. He will voice an old, taxidermied cat in Mila Kunis’s short animated series, Stoner Cats, which will be released to NFT holders. Also in the art world, a portrait known as the ‘Crypto Mona Lisa’, signed by Buterin, will be listed on Australian platform NFT STARS on July 30.

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Crypto News Ethereum NFTs

Vitalik Buterin and Chris Rock to Star in ‘Stoner Cats’ NFT Series

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, will star in an animated comedy series called Stoner Cats alongside Chris Rock and a number of other A-list actors and comedians.

Created and produced by actor Mila Kunis, Stoner Cats revolves around a lovable old cat lady, Ms Stoner, and her five house cats which become sentient after inhaling their owner’s “magic” medical marijuana. Buterin voices Lord Catsington, an old taxidermied cat that provides wisdom and guidance to the other cats in the show.

Non-Fungible Television

The show will also star Kunis’s husband, Ashton Kutcher, as well as Seth MacFarlane, Chris Rock and Jane Fonda. Viewers will have to mint a non-fungible token (NFT) to get access to the first five-minute episode, but that token will function as a lifetime pass for all Stoner Cats episodes. The NFTs will sell for 0.35 ETH, or around $US800 at the time of writing.

NFT Cats Beget More Cats

The true genius of Kunis and her team is that minting a token to watch the show will also generate a unique NFT cat, which can presumably be traded among other collectors. Each cat is “algorithmically generated by combining 500+ unique traits with varying rarity across six categories (Eyes, Expression, Collar, Left Side, Right Side, Accessories). Incredibly rare NFTs featuring limited edition characters are also available.”

NFTs are hot topic right now, and combining them with cats, which are always extremely popular on the internet, is a brilliant move and one that could propel this project to great success.

NFTs Continue to Soar

NFTs are one of the most talked-about topics in the crypto community right now. NFT platforms continue to explore the implications on the distribution of artworks and entertainment media. A digital artwork known as the ‘Crypto Mona Lisa’, signed by Stoner Cats’ own Vitalik Buterin, will be listed on Australian platform NFT STARS on July 30.

CryptoMother, aka the ‘Crypto Mona Lisa’. Source: BTC Art Gallery

There has been further interest from traditional film and TV studios in using NFTs as a new way to distribute entertainment media. Last month, Fox Entertainment announced it was investing $US100 million into developing its own NFT platform. Earlier this month, it was announced that Oscar-winning actor Anthony Hopkins’ latest film, Zero Contact, will be released exclusively as an NFT on Vuele.

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Blockchain Crypto News E-commerce NFTs

Shopify Merchants Can Now Sell NFTs Directly on the Platform

Popular e-commerce platform Shopify is gradually tapping into the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) trend. In a recent tweet, president Harley Finkelstein mentioned that Shopify merchants can now sell NFT content directly from their online stores. 

At the moment, this offering is only available for a limited number of merchants. “A select few for now. Stay tuned,“ the president said. 

Chicago Bulls to Debut First NFT Sale on Shopify

According to Finkelstein, the Chicago Bulls basketball team will be hosting one of the first NFT collection sales under Shopify. The so-named “Bulls Legacy Collection” will be a limited edition offering to highlight the team’s six World Championship rings and NBA titles. 

The Chicago Bulls NFTs were minted on Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain, and “no more than” 567 will be minted. 

Before Shopify offered this capability, merchants would have to sell through a third-party marketplace [with] less control of the sale and customer relationship. Once again, we are putting the power back into the hands of merchants and meeting customers how and where they want to buy.

Shopify president Harley Finkelstein

Shopify Keeps Drawing Close to the Crypto Space

Shopify is one major e-commerce company that has tried to blend into cryptocurrency trends. Since 2014, the company has been supporting crypto integrations. As recently as April 6, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke showed interest in DeFi, asking for opportunities and suggesting the role the company could play in the decentralised finance space. 

Last year, Crypto News Australia reported that Australian developer Jeronimo Backes was working on an integration that will enable Shopify stores to accept payments easily in Cardano (ADA).

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Crypto News NFTs

12-Year-Old Whiz Kid Makes 80 ETH in 12 hours from Weird Whales NFT Drop

Benyamin is not your average schoolkid. You could say he was born into the NFT business. Now 12, he has been learning to code since he was five, his dad is a programmer who is into crypto, and he is inspired by CryptoPunks.

Weird Whales creator Benyamin goes by the handle @ObiWanBenoni on Twitter and has built an impressive community of over 4,000 followers. Reaching out to the Boring Bananas team, Benyamin received mentorship from Vee who helped him develop the python script to put together traits for the Weird Whales collection and set up the project, supporting him all the way up to the launch.

Benyamin’s proactivity and hard work have paid off handsomely, with the Weird Whales NFT launch raking in over US$1.2 million (600ETH) in the first 48  hours. Its creator effectively made 80ETH in the first 12 hours of the drop.

You can check out the Weird Whales collection on OpenSea. Weird Whales is the second NFT collection by Benyamin, and it was completely sold out.

Weird Whales is a collection of NFTs – unique digital collectibles, swimming on the Ethereum blockchain; 3350 whales have been programmatically generated from an ocean of combinations, each with unique characteristics and different traits. Own a Weird Whale and surf the crypto revolution.

opensea.io/collection/weirdwhales
One of Benyamins Weird Whales

How Are NFT Collections Created?

The wonderful thing about the NFT community (as with crypto and open-source coders) is the sharing spirit and transparency of its members. Benyamin helpfully tweeted a 10-step breakdown on how he went about creating the Weird Whales NFT collection:

NFT collectibles are created using python to randomly help generate features that contribute to the value of each NFT. Vee from @BoringBananasCo recently tweeted a how-to guide:

NFTs are more than just expensive JPGs. They have become a membership card into a cool kids’ club. It is a way for crypto and art lovers to become part of a community that supports and promotes each other. Owners are not only trading these online collectibles like baseball cards but are collecting them as rare digital art.

Interestingly an underground movement has begun among NFT collectors, where is it has become the fashion to feature the NFT images as their own avatars, adopting them to represent their online identities and show off their ownership of the unique artwork proudly.

Last month, a world record price of US$11.8 million was paid for a single CryptoPunk. The likes of Benyamin might just have upped the ante. And he’s not the only wunderkind taking the crypto community by storm. Also last month, Crypto News Australia reported on 13-year-old Indian programmer Gajesh Naik, who designed a DeFi protocol that now manages around US$1 million in cryptocurrency.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News NFTs

Aussie-Based ZED RUN Raises $20 Million for NFT Racehorses

Virtually Human Studio (VHS) has raised US$20 million in a funding round involving formidable American VC firms Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and The Chernin Group (TCG).

The Australian digital entertainment company plans to expand the operations of its non-fungible token (NFT) horseracing platform known as “ZED RUN”, which allows users to trade, race, breed and own racehorses as so-called “breathable NFTs“.

TCG and Andreessen Horowitz Back Aussie ZED RUN

VHS bagged US$20 million in Series A, which was led by TCG and included Andreessen Horowitz, plus Red Beard Ventures, as per the July 21 announcement.

With the fresh capital, VHS will build out its operations and products with ZED RUN to offer more improved creator tools for virtual racehorse owners. The company is looking to expand its workforce to establish deeper partner integrations and legacy brands.

Our vision for the future is to build a creator economy within the ZED RUN metaverse where players can work in professions such as stable owner, racetrack owner, breeder, accessory designer, and more […] We are also working to partner closely with brands to produce immersive sponsorship experiences.

Chris Laurent, CEO, Virtually Human Studio

The announcement also confirmed a growing interest in virtual racehorses. So far, over US$30 million in NFT racehorses has been traded on ZED RUN, ranging from US$130 to U$45,000 per horse based on their unique programmed characteristics. 

VCs Are Betting Big on NFTs 

Venture capital companies such as Andreessen Horowitz have been investing heavily on NFT platforms since the industry boom began this year. In March, NFT marketplace OpenSea closed a Series A round, raising up to US$23 million from Andreessen Horowitz and other companies, to expand its business. 

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Australia Gaming NFTs

Aussie NFT Game Creator Makes 9x Profit Selling Virtual Land

Kieran Warwick, the Aussie co-founder of an NFT-based game, has shared news of the massive profit he made flipping a piece of virtual real estate. Warwick bought a $300 plot of ‘land’ in the popular blockchain game Axie Infinity and sold it for $28,000. 

Increasing the value of unique digital assets, represented by Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), is the cornerstone of play-to-earn games built on the blockchain. 

Warwick is a self-described ‘Yield Farmer’ and, with his brother Aaron, the co-founder of Illuvium, a decentralised strategy game and NFT collection built on the Ethereum network. He also worked closely with his other brother, Kain Warwick, to establish DeFi platform Synthetix.

Illuvium is a creature-based game similar to Pokemon where gamers capture creatures called Illuvials that are represented by NFTs, and also taps into DeFi users looking for yield farming opportunities.

Virtual plots of land in the Illuvium world could soon be a reality too, according to Kieran Warwick’s reply to a comment on his tweet:

Related article: 25+ Exciting Blockchain Enabled Games

Virtual Real Estate Has Real-World Value

The most expensive NFT real estate sale to date also involved Axie Infinity plots – nine rare plots were sold for 888 Ethereum, or around US$1.5 million, in February:

Games like Axie Infinity are also becoming a viable income source for some, especially in developing countries:

This guy says playing the game helped him afford a ‘real’ plot:

Technology is keeping pace to enable people to secure their digital assets too. In June, cryptocurrency hardware company Ledger announced it would use new funding to provide secure gateways to a growing ecosystem of NFTs, real estate, and other forms of value on the blockchain.

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Australia Crypto News NFTs

‘Crypto Mona Lisa’ Signed by Vitalik Buterin to be Auctioned on Aussie NFT Platform

CryptoMother, aka the ‘Crypto Mona Lisa’, a much sought-after 2017 painting signed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, is to be auctioned on Australian non-fungible token platform NFT STARS on July 30.

The iconic painting by Russian artist Aleksandra Eliseeva, an oil on canvas measuring 100cm x 100cm, is part of a collection entitled “Art of Blockchain”, whose owner has decided to put it back on the market after rejecting several lucrative offers over the years. 

Seller to Cover Shipping Costs

The successful bidder will receive the original portrait together with its NFT, and the painting will be shipped by a specialist transportation company with costs covered by the seller.

CryptoMother has captured the imagination of digital art collectors over the past four years. In 2018, a US millionaire offered the current owner US$6 million for it but was declined “on ideological grounds”.

The painting is the centrepiece of the “Art of Blockchain” collection, consisting of five NFT artworks and their original oil paintings – the others are Miss Coin, CryptoFather, Ethereum, and Bitcoin. All five pieces in the collection will be auctioned on the same day.

Part of Proceeds to Go to Charity of Buyer’s Choosing

The current owner of the collection has stated that part of the auction proceeds will be donated to a charity organisation determined by the buyer.

NFT STARS expects to hit several records with its July 30 drops. While each piece is unique, the entire collection represents the core values and aspirations of the crypto community.

By way of perspective, in March popular digital artist Beeple bagged over US$60 million from the sales of his 5,000-day digital art collection. And last month, Hobart’s Museum of Art & Philosophy (MAP) launched Australia’s first NFT gallery in the Tasmanian capital. 

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China Crypto Art NFTs

Chinese Internet Giant Supports Real Estate NFTs in its Entrepreneur Festival

Alibaba’s e-commerce platform Taobao is unveiling its self-proclaimed “socialist cyberpunk” housing digital collection as nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in a first-time event showcasing NFTs at the Taobao Maker Festival, which concludes on July 25.

Huang Heshan, a Chinese digital artist and creator of the “Bu Tu Backyard”, is a star of this year’s festival, held in Shanghai. The annual event celebrating Chinese language, artwork and entrepreneurship will display the “Bu Tu Gardens” as part of his “Toorich City Series”.

Toorich luxury villas. Source: Toorich

With more than 1,000 virtual structures available for purchase, interested individuals can choose from 10 “luxury single-family villas”, 300 “high-end units”, and 1,000 “umbrella” parasols. However, these will not be purchasable with cryptocurrency as payment will need to be made in Chinese Yuan.

Toorich high-end units. Source: Toorich

These NFTs are purely artistic works but with the technology expanding, crypto-driven virtual real estate has seen a massive upsurge in interest. Binance’s NFT marketplace recently hosted its ‘100 Creators’ campaign and Australians are also in on the act, with an NFT art exhibition held in Adelaide earlier this year.

NFT Technology Facilitates Art and Artists

The partnership of NEAR protocol and Web3Games was essential to the creation of the Toorich City Series NFTs. Each time an artist casts an NFT on the chain, a certain fee is required. The low casting cost is one of the reasons Huang Heshan chose to cooperate with NEAR.

If I were to issue the NFTs on legacy blockchain platforms, it would cost me a few hundred US dollars to issue each NFT, whereas on NEAR, an environmentally friendly blockchain platform, minting an NFT could cost below 1 cent.

Huang Heshan

The technical standard of an NFT not only helps to better determine the copyright or ownership but can also benefit artists by including a royalty-sharing function. NEAR has played an important role in lowering the barriers for the use of blockchain technology and promoting the use of NFT technology by the mainstream.

I thought that the concepts of blockchain and NFT would be very complicated, and it would be very troublesome to operate, but the result was unexpected.

Huang Heshan

NFTs are still a niche technology, but applications are numerous in the art world. Mintbase, NEAR’s NFT platform, has provided technical support for next month’s German music festival Wilde Moehre, integrating the real world with the virtual world. The tickets for this festival, to be held from August 6-9, were also made into NFTs through Mintbase, resulting in reduced channel loss and the elimination of fake tickets and ticket resellers.

NFTs are beyond just digital collectibles. As an innovative technology, they can power many use cases across different industries. NEAR’s goal is to bridge the users of today’s internet to the blockchain-based web of the future.

Amos Zhang, general manager, NEAR Asia