Category: Social media

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Dogecoin Markets Payments Social media

Dogecoin Rallies on the Back of Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0 Plans

The price of everyone’s favourite dog-themed meme coin, Dogecoin, has surged over the past week on the back of a tweet from the new Twitter owner, Elon Musk. Musk’s tweet got the Doge army’s tails wagging as it outlined his plans for the social media platform, which included a vague reference to payments.

Data from CoinGecko shows Dogecoin’s price jumped from US$0.088 before Musk’s tweet on November 27 to US$0.108 at the time of writing, an increase of 22.2 percent. Over the week, Dogecoin is up a whopping 37.9 percent: a significant increase given the current bear market.

What Did Musk Tweet?

Ever since Musk purchased Twitter last month, Dogecoin enthusiasts have been hopeful that the famously Doge-interested billionaire would somehow integrate the coin into Twitter. 

In his Tweet on November 27, Musk outlined the progress he’d made since taking over the platform and also listed some future plans for what he referred to as Twitter 2.0 — The Everything App.

Some of the new features Musk listed included encrypted direct messages, long form tweets, relaunched ‘Blue Verified’, and a vague and mysterious reference to payments. 

Despite no direct reference to Dogecoin, the mention of payments coming to Twitter was enough to spark FOMO, triggering something of a buying frenzy and causing the meme coin’s price to spike.

Musk’s mysterious slide deck image with a blank space for payments. Source: @elonmusk on Twitter

Earlier Rumours Contribute to FOMO

Previously, just after Musk’s purchase of Twitter in late October, rumours had begun circulating, fuelled by speculation from tech blogger Jane Manchun Wong, that the company had commenced work on a crypto wallet that would allow users to deposit and withdraw crypto. This earlier speculation saw Dogecoin’s price jump 40 percent at the time and may have played a part in the excitement about Musk’s tweet.

Some in the crypto community have poured cold water on the idea of Dogecoin for payments — pointing out that unlike many other distributed ledgers, Dogecoin doesn’t natively support smart contracts and may not be suitable as a payments platform due to shortcomings in security, privacy and capacity for scaling. 

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Blockchain Crypto News NFTs Polygon Social media

Meta Announces NFT Marketplace on Instagram

Instagram will soon have a built-in NFT marketplace according to a November 1 announcement by Meta, the company behind social media apps Facebook and Instagram.

According to a statement from Meta, the marketplace will function as an ‘end-to-end’ NFT toolkit, allowing users to create, showcase and sell their NFT from within the Instagram app. Creators will be able to sell their NFTs — or digital collectibles as Meta calls them — both on Instagram and on other platforms.

The new marketplace will initially be tested with a small group of hand-picked US-based creators, including Amber Victoria, Dave Krugman and Isaac ‘Drift’ Wright, with plans to eventually expand access to creators throughout the world.

Marketplace Designed to Support Creators

Meta’s Head of Commerce and Fintech, Stephane Kasriel says the purpose of the new NFT marketplace is primarily to support creators and make it easier for them to monetise their work.

In a Medium post published the day after Instagram’s new NFT marketplace was announced, Kasriel made the case for blockchain and other Web3 technologies that solves many of the issues creators face, such as segmented audiences across multiple platforms and difficulty monetising their digital creations. 

“[Blockchain] makes it possible for creators to build more direct and profitable relationships with their audiences because it gives them more ownership over their work with blockchain-based assets that can be monetized, like NFTs. Blockchain also gives creators the ability to take their content and fans with them to different platforms.” 

Stephane Kasriel, Head of Commerce and Fintech, Meta

Marketplace to Run on Polygon, No Gas Fees

The new marketplace will use the Polygon blockchain, which is an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, and will initially be entirely fee-less — Meta says for now it won’t charge fees to use the marketplace and will also cover any Ethereum gas fees. According to Kasriel Meta doesn’t plan to start charging fees until 2024. 

All transactions made through the Instagram marketplace will however still be subject to the 30 percent ‘Apple Tax’ which applies to all apps on Apple’s AppStore.

The marketplace will also support video-based NFTs. Support for Solana and Phantom wallets are to be added at some stage in the future.

Meta has demonstrated it sees a bright future in Web3 technology, having previously launched its own blockchain-based system known as Diem. In May of this year, Instagram added a feature allowing users to display their Ethereum and Polygon-based NFTs. The launch of this new marketplace shows a significant deepening of Meta’s interest in leveraging Web3 technologies.

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Crypto News Dogecoin Markets Social media

Dogecoin Surges Over 90% Following Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover 

With Elon Musk finally taking the reins at Twitter last week, the value of Dogecoin rallied by more than 90% — jumping from US$0.05 to $0.14 briefly on October 30 before dropping to 11 cents at the time of writing.

Seven-day price data for DOGE. Source: CoinMarketCap

Despite the latest surge, in defiance of the prevailing crypto winter, DOGE remains down 84% on its all-time-high of US$0.73 in May 2021 according to CoinMarketCap. Dogecoin now ranks eighth in the market, overtaking Cardano (ADA) with a market cap of US$15.6 million.

Musk has long been a supporter of the meme coin, and has been attributed as the cause of several major DOGE price pumps, including when he first announced his intent to buy Twitter. 

The Twitter acquisition process was fraught, with Musk seeking to renege his offer and then backflipping in early October —ostensibly to avoid legal action brought about by Twitter. At the time, Musk’s confirmation that he’d close the deal led to a small bump in Dogecoin’s value of around 9%. 

Officially becoming Twitter’s boss has come with some surprising learning opportunities for Musk:

Musk loves DOGE

CEO of electric car company Tesla and rocket manufacturer SpaceX, Musk has touted his admiration for Dogecoin in various tweets and interview mentions since 2019. He also began accepting Dogecoin as a payment in exchange for merchandise of his companies. 

Musk had also hinted that he was considering making DOGE a payment option for Twitter users to authenticate their accounts. Since the acquisition was finalised, Cardano’s founder and CEO Charles Hoskinson went as far as predicting DOGE could be integrated with the social media platform:

Musk’s support for DOGE has not been without controversy. In June this year a US$258 billion class-action lawsuit was filed against Musk and his companies, alleging Musk had been essentially running a Ponzi scheme — intentionally manipulating the price of the coin for profit.

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Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs Social media

Twitter Will Allow Users to Buy and Sell NFTs Through Tweets

NFTs are set to become an even more prominent part of the Twittersphere, with Twitter sharing news today that it’s making it possible for NFT images and details to appear in tweets for the first time.   

Twitter’s development team announced that tweeting links to some NFTs —from select NFT marketplaces— will now show a larger picture and useful details like the artwork name and its creator. 

Potential Boom For NFT Sales

Not only will Twitter users be able to visually showcase their NFTs more easily, the new feature includes a link to marketplace listings, which could significantly boost sales and the value of the NFT market more broadly. 

NFT marketplaces included in the test include Rarible, Magic Eden, Dapper Labs, and Jump.trade.

Twitter is a popular playground for crypto and web3 enthusiasts, with Twitter’s own trends report released in March 2022 showing a huge jump in tweeted conversations on topics including NFTs, DeFi, DApps, and DAOs.

Twitter Developing for Dynamic Experiences 

Twitter began testing its customisable tweet formatting feature called Tweet Tiles in August this year with the accounts of major news outlets The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Guardian. In introducing Tile Tweets, Twitter said: “These formats are designed to easily engage with content and make your timeline more dynamic and visual.” 

This latest move to include embedded NFTs in Tweet Tiles expands the social media platform’s support for NFTs following its work earlier this year to allow users to use NFTs from their collections as their Twitter profile picture.

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Crypto News Dogecoin Social media

Elon Musk Revives Twitter Buyout – Dogecoin Rallies

twitter logo on mobile phone with Elon Musk in the background

Tesla CEO and part-time crypto memelord, Elon Musk, has sent a letter to Twitter through his lawyers indicating he is now willing to purchase the company for the originally agreed price of $US44 billion, or US$54.20 per share. The letter was also filed with the SEC. 

This surprising move comes after Musk had previously reneged on his offer to buy Twitter, citing the social media giant’s lack of honesty and transparency around the extent of spam bots on the platform.

Immediately following the letter’s release, the price of DogeCoin, the meme coin Musk is so fond of, surged eight percent — changing hands at the time of writing at US$0.0656, up 9.2% on the day.

Doge Coin Chart
Dogecoin chart over the last seven days. Source: CoinMarketCap

Deal to Close Twitter’s Case Against Musk

Musk’s new offer to buy Twitter specifies that the social media platform must immediately drop its legal action against him — relating to the retraction of his previous offer to buy the company — which was due to go to trial in just two weeks.

With Musk’s new offer, it appears the legal action has been dropped, and the deal, as originally agreed, will be closed:

The timing of this new offer begs speculation that Musk was trying to avoid going to trial, perhaps because he received legal advice that he was unlikely to win or in hopes of preventing information from being released at trial (already a large trove of Musk’s private text messages have been released as part of the case).

Musk has given the impression that he simply decided Twitter is, once again, a company he wants to purchase for strategic reasons. Following the release of the letter, Musk tweeted that the purchase of Twitter is an important part of his plan to develop ‘X’, something which he describes as ‘the everything app’.

Musk And Twitter: A Brief History

Musk originally offered to buy Twitter in April of this year, promising his purchase would bring a renewed commitment to freedom of speech on the platform — but the deal quickly ran into problems. 

Just three months after announcing his intention to purchase, Musk was backing out of the deal claiming that Twitter had provided him with misleading data about the prevalence of fake accounts and spam bots.

Twitter, for their part, insisted they had provided accurate data and took their case to the Delaware Court of Chancery to attempt to enforce the contract. 

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Crypto News Illegal Regulation Social media

Kim Kardashian Fined $1.26 Million by SEC Over Unlawful Crypto Promo

Kim Kardashian adjusting hair

High-profile influencer and star of the reality TV show ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’, Kim Kardashian, has paid a total of US$1.26 million to settle charges brought against her by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to her promotion of the cryptocurrency EthereumMax (EMAX) in 2021. 

The SEC filed the charges against Kardashian for failing to disclose that she received a US$250,000 payment to promote EthereumMax to her social media followers. 

Kardashian’s Promotion Biased, Banned From Promoting Crypto

The Instagram post from Kardashian that attracted the charges contained a link to the EthereumMax website and provided instructions to buy EMAX tokens, the cryptocurrency sold by EthereumMax.

Kardashian’s post was part of EthereumMax’s aggressive 2021 marketing push which saw numerous other celebrities, including boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and former basketball player Paul Pierce, endorse the cryptocurrency on social media. 

According to the SEC, Kardashian’s failure to disclose the payment she received for her part in the promotion was a breach of the anti-touting provisions of US federal securities laws, which are intended to protect consumers from biased and self-interested promotion of securities. Speaking about the case, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said:

“The federal securities laws are clear that any celebrity or other individual who promotes a crypto asset security must disclose the nature, source, and amount of compensation they received in exchange for the promotion…Investors are entitled to know whether the publicity of a security is unbiased, and Ms. Kardashian failed to disclose this information.”

SEC Chair Gary Gensler

As part of her settlement, Kardashian also agreed to cooperate with the SEC’s ongoing investigation into EthereumMax and to refrain from promoting any cryptocurrencies for three years.

What Is EthereumMax?

Despite having ‘Ethereum’ in its name, EthereumMax’s EMAX tokens aren’t related to Ethereum’s native ETH cryptocurrency. Rather EthereumMax is simply an ERC-20 token built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. It has a total supply of 2,000,000,000,000,000 — that’s right, two quadrillion tokens — and an unknown current circulating supply.

EthereumMax’s founders claim it’s a “progressive coin” that provides “lifestyle perks and financial rewards” to holders. However, it’s unclear exactly what these perks and rewards are. 

At the time of writing, EMAX is down over 98 percent from its all time high, which it hit on May 31, 2021, on the back of its aggressive celebrity endorsement drive.

SEC Charges Follow Investor Lawsuit

Kardashian’s charges aren’t the first legal stoush related to EthereumMax — in January 2022 a lawsuit filed in the US District Court of California’s Central District alleged the founders of EthereumMax, Steve Gentile and Giovanni Perone, and their celebrity spruikers were effectively running a pump and dump scheme. 

The complainant claims that while the celebrities pumped the price by promoting the cryptocurrency to their followers, they, along with the founders, were already dumping their EMAX tokens for a significant profit, while their followers were left holding the bag.

Categories
Cryptocurrency Law Privacy Social media Tornado Cash

#FreeAlexPertsev Protest March Kicks Off After Tornado Cash Dev’s Arrest

A week after the arrest of Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev, public dissent has reached a crescendo. Crypto and privacy advocates are planning protest marches and a petition advocating for his release is now circulating on social media under the #FreeAlexPertsev banner.

Writers of Open-Source Code Treated as Scapegoats

Following Pertsev’s arrest in Dam Square, Amsterdam, 50 advocates organised a demonstration alongside Pertsev’s wife, Xenia Malik. The public is also getting on board with protesters arguing Pertsev should not be held responsible for writing open-source code, regardless of its users.

The protest is raising several questions in relation to whether these projects’ developers deserve such harsh punishments. Crypto mixers in themselves are not illegal, merely serving to allow users transaction anonymity. The problem comes when this technology is used to launder illicit funds.

A petition was organised on Change.org last week by Finnish product manager Daria Mironova, who hopes to further raise awareness of the circumstances of the arrest. In the petition, Mironova explains that open-source software can be “audited, fixed and improved by anyone”, yet a developer cannot control how this code is used, even with the best intentions.

If we don’t react now, in the future we might see many cases where innocent developers go to prison when someone misuses their code.

Daria Mironova, Finnish product manager

As it stands, no official charges have been filed against Pertsev; however, he has been interrogated about his involvement in the protocol’s development. By the end of last week, 1,015 signatures had been added to the petition. When that figure reaches 40,000, Mironova plans to take this proof of public dissent to the authorities.

How It All Started

On August 12, Dutch authorities announced they had arrested Perstev in Amsterdam for his supposed involvement in facilitating money laundering and concealing criminal financial flows through his work on the crypto mixing service. It was alleged that Tornado Cash enabled criminals to launder stolen assets by concealing their identities.

Yet it wasn’t all negative, as the platform also hid the identities of Ukrainian citizens receiving donated crypto from the public. However, the Dutch authorities maintain that those behind the company made a significant profit from these transactions.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Crypto News Cryptocurrency Law NFTs Social media

Bored Ape Defies NFT Downturn, Sells for $1.5 Million

A cashed-up Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) enthusiast has just paid a huge 777 ETH (US$1.5 million) for a single Ape, defying the current market downturn.

Crypto millionaire and BAYC superfan Vis.eth purchased Bored Ape #5383 for its gold fur, after already spending millions on Otherdeeds:

https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/5383
Bored Ape #5383.

Median Price Hits Two-Month High

The Ape purchased this week by Vis.eth is the 285th rarest in the BAYC collection, notable for its gold fur and red checked shirt. The purchase pumped the median price for the collection, pushing it to a new two-month high of 441 ETH.

Vis.eth’s purchase of Ape #5383 netted a 500 percent profit for its previous owner, who originally bought it for 95 ETH. The “metaverse mogul” is no stranger to these purchases, having already spent millions on Otherdeeds from Yuga Labs’ Otherside project, and some CryptoPunks:  

The monthly volume for the NFT marketplace has been at abysmally low levels during the crypto winter. Total sales for July were a meagre US$675.53 million in comparison to January’s US$5.63 billion:

https://www.theblockresearch.com/data/nft-non-fungible-tokens/marketplaces
The difference a crypto winter makes to NFT sales.

Eventful Year for Yuga Labs

Yuga Labs has been stuck between a rock and a hard place of late, with both the media and the courts snapping at its heels. In late July, a class-action lawsuit was filed by international law firm Scott+Scott over allegations that it falsely promoted Bored Ape NFTs and ApeCoins as securities with guaranteed returns, despite their value actually plummeting in the subsequent three months.

Prior to the lawsuit, Yuga Labs faced damning allegations of racism which rocked the industry. Philip Rusnack, aka Philion, posted a lengthy YouTube video identifying supposed alt-right connotations among the memes, language and symbols used in Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collections. This led to the trending ‘BURNBAYC’ hashtag, which was circulating on Twitter at the time.

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Crypto News Social media

Email Service ‘MailChimp’ Suspends Crypto Accounts Without Notice

MailChimp has suspended the accounts of several crypto-related firms including intelligence platform Messari, crypto wallet provider Edge, NFT artist Ocarina, and Jesse Friedland, founder of NFT collection Cryptoon Goonz. Content creators and media outlets in the space have also been affected.

According to an email received by at least one of the above list: “[MailChimp] cannot allow businesses involved in the sale, transaction, trading, exchange, storage, marketing, or production of cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies and any digital assets.”

Twitter in Overdrive in Response to MailChimp Action

Messari founder Ryan Selkis was among the first to take to Twitter to register his disappointment at the action taken by MailChimp:

The Ethereum Foundation’s Sam Richards also revealed that its Ecosystem Support Program was also facing suspension:

Cory Klippsten of Swan Private, a Bitcoin investment advisory firm for corporations and high net worth individuals, joined the tweetstorm regarding MailChimp’s ban, calling on other marketing agencies in the industry to “step up” in light of this incident and others:

MailChimp Responds

In a limited response to the complaints, MailChimp said accounts were being disabled or “temporarily suspended” due to service violations. According to its website, the clause falls under the “Acceptable Use” policy, which outlines prohibited content.

In that same section, MailChimp states that “cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies, and any digital assets related to an Initial Coin Offering” are prohibited due to “higher-than-average abuse complaints”, adding that its site policy was updated in May of last year. Incidentally, it was in 2021 that the email marketing service provider was acquired by financial services giant Intuit.

Speaking on behalf of crypto-related content creators and media outlets, Analyse Asia founder Bernard Leong tweeted:

Pattern of Behaviour

This is not the first time MailChimp has gone after after crypto-related content. Such action can be traced back to 2018, the year Facebook also banned crypto-related advertising on its site due to breaches of regulatory guidelines.

Ironically, in April this year crypto hardware wallet company Trezor investigated “a potential data breach of an opt-in newsletter hosted on MailChimp”.

Categories
Blockchain Crypto Art Crypto News Flow NFTs Social media

FLOW Pumps 50% Amid Instagram NFT Integration in 100 Countries  

A new Instagram feature that lets people post NFTs minted on the Flow blockchain saw the value of the FLOW token surge over 50 percent within 24 hours.

FLOW rose from less than US$2 on August 4 to US$2.98 the following day after social media giant Meta announced its support for digital collectibles minted on the blockchain. 

So far, the rally has been sustained, with FLOW’s price sitting at US$2.89 at the time of writing – however, it’s still down over 93 percent from its all-time high of US$42.40 in April 2021.

Expanded NFT Integrations on Instagram 

Meta began testing a feature to let Instagram users in the US upload NFTs at no cost in May, with support for crypto art minted on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Meta said that being able to showcase NFTs would help creators build a broader audience and more monetisation opportunities.

The company’s latest announcement opens up the feature to users in 100 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas, as well as adding support for the Flow blockchain.

Digital wallets that can be connected to Instagram now include Coinbase, Dapper, Rainbow, MetaMask and Trust Wallet. Once a user has connected their wallet, they can share NFTs on their Instagram profile and public information will also be drawn in and displayed – such as a description of the NFT and the Instagram usernames of the creator and collector (unless accounts are private).