Category: Solana

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Crypto News NFTs Scams Solana

Developers Pull Off Third NFT Rug-Pull for $1.3 Million, ‘Verified’ Project ‘Big Daddy Ape Club’

The Big Daddy Ape Club, a non-fungible token (NFT) project on Solana (SOL), has pulled the rug on investors for 9,136 SOL (an estimated US$1.3 million), even though the project was verified.

One of the largest NFT rug-pulls in Solana’s history occurred on January 11, the scammer getting away with almost US$1.3 million in investor funds. Digital artist and NFT blogger Faith Orr described it as an especially harsh incident since “most rugs do the basic courtesy of leaving their victims with NFTs even if they don’t ever get listed on secondary markets”.

According to some, it might even be the same individual or group of people responsible for multiple rug-pulls that have happened in the past. Shortly after the incident, the project’s Twitter, Discord and website went offline, followed by Solanart verifying there had indeed been a rug-pull:

Verified Project Disappoints

Even though the project had been verified by Civic, the developers were still able to run off with the funds. Does this mean the devs were just extra-shady, or did Civic drop the ball? In its defence, Civic stated that it designed the program as a free service for creators to verify their real-world identities and build trust within their communities:

We are aware of the reported Big Daddy Ape Club rug-pull and that there are victims involved. We take this attack on the NFT community seriously, and are taking steps to offer all the assistance we can.

Chris Hart, Civic CEO

Civic CEO Chris Hart conceded that its solution doesn’t perform due diligence other than identity verification, and that no verification process is 100 percent effective all of the time. Civic’s verification process is mainly designed to protect participants in the case of an incident where identity information can be shared with relevant authorities in the event something happens.

The Civic Pass program works by verifying control of the project’s Twitter handle, oversight of the project’s domain, and identity verification of the project founders through ID document capture. The verification process also includes a 3D face scan of the person.

Civic Takes Steps Toward Recourse

Civic is now taking the next steps in order to solve this case, and in a statement to Decrypt said that “the identity of the individual who held themselves out as the founder of the BDAC project was verified through our program”, adding that “we are cooperating with law enforcement to assist in their investigation, but do not know how long their investigation will take”.

At the start of January, a decentralised P2E game on Solana turned out to be a rug-pull. Hopefully, the BDAC community can pull together after this one, as was the case with the Frosties NFT rug-pull on January 15.

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Crypto News Hackers Solana

Solana Down for Second Time This Week; Should Users be Concerned?

It appears Solana is down for the second time this week. As Crypto News Australia reported, Solana suffered a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on January 4, leading to slow network performance and failed transactions.

SOL Community Outraged

Then on January 6, Solana Status announced that the network had suffered a “degraded performance due to an increase in high compute transactions”. SOL co-founders and members are denying another possible DDoS attack and that it was rather a “congestion issue”. As expected, the message wasn’t well received by the community:

Solana Beach shows that the average TPS (transactions per second) rate is back to around 1500. However, roughly 80 percent of those are not smart contract transactions, but on-chain consensus messages.

As previously explained by Twitter user and crypto enthusiast EdnStuff, the more validators join the network, the number of consensus messages grows exponentially, not linearly:

Third Time’s the Charm?

This is the third time that Solana has been struck by a DDoS attack, or as its co-founders prefer to call it, a “congestion issue”. More SOL users are complaining about the constant crashes and condemning the network’s vulnerability. After all, it was only two days ago that Solana crashed due to a DDoS attack. Already on December 14, the Solana blockchain was jammed after suffering a DDoS attack that led to huge delays.

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NFTs Scams Social media Solana Tokens

MonkeyBall NFT Drop Ends in Disaster with Buyers Losing SOL

A new game being developed on Solana called ‘MonkeyBall’ has caused mayhem as angry investors take to Twitter to voice their concerns about the project.

The project was aiming to drop 5,000 Monkey NFTs on its website on January 7 at 12am AEST. But the launch countdown timer on the website didn’t even finish before a message popped up saying “drop ended”, leaving many users disappointed and angry.

MonkeyBall NFT drop closed before the countdown finished. Source: Twitter

Some users were persistently refreshing the web page, even hundreds of times, and a few were able to create a 2 SOL transaction to mint an NFT. However, the SOL was sent to MonkeyBall but no NFT was returned appearing in the wallet, leaving investors out of pocket.

The subdomain used for the drop (monkeydrop2022.monkeyball.com) did appear in the DNS a few minutes before the official countdown ended, which hackers could have used to exploit the drop and execute mint transactions to chew up the supply.

Failed Token Launch, Failed NFT Drop and Broken Promises

The MonkeyBall team also muted the Discord and Telegram communities throughout the drop, leaving users in the dark as to what was actually going on.

Some YouTubers did some investigative work to try to find out what happened. They revealed several flaws in the drop, including coding errors, bot prevention flaws and whitelist logic ambiguities.

Token Launch IDO Mayhem

This failed NFT drop comes after the project had previously promised the $MBS token launch on Starlaunch IDO, which after investors had put their money in was suddenly delayed without notice, leaving unanswered questions about the project’s integrity.

Starlaunch used Fractal to process the KYC for the MonkeyBall IDO, which experienced some problems, allowing investors to put money into the launchpad – even though they were not eligible to participate from their location – leaving a lot of investors angry and out of pocket.

Was Solana to Blame for the Failed Drop?

The MonkeyBall team has blamed Solana for the failed drop but investors are not buying it, as it appears the Solana blockchain was working fine at the time of mint:

That said, there have been some problems with the network lately after Solana suffered DDOS attacks on January 4, and it did have some downtime.

SOL users have expressed their outrage on Twitter and Reddit. One Redditor, angry for the constant delay, claimed that Solana Status was lying to its users, insisting the network had been working “completely fine” and that the delay problems might be related to slow internet connections.

Is MonkeyBall a Rug Pull?

Crypto News Australia has reported on a lot of scams in 2021 including countless rug pulls from NFT projects, to mention but a few recent Solana-related examples:

While it cannot be proved that MonkeyBall is a rug pull, we encourage investors to be cautious and take note of the red flags that have appeared. We’ve reached out to the MonkeyBall team to get some comments on this.

If you want to find out more, check out these resources:

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Crypto News Hackers Social media Solana

Solana Network Temporarily Down Again After Another DDoS Attack

High-performance network Solana has suffered another DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, specifically at 2:00 am (UTC+8) on January 4:

This is just another of the many exploits Solana has sustained in recent weeks. On December 14, Solana suffered a DDoS attack that jammed the network and caused huge transaction delays.

Outrage Among the SOL Community

The network appears to be back up again following the latest incident, but the continued breaches have caused outrage in the SOL community, who are now complaining en masse about how vulnerable the network is.

SOL users have expressed their outrage on Twitter and Reddit. One Redditor, angry for the constant delay, claimed that Solana Status has been lying to its users, insisting the network has been working “completely fine” and that the delay problems might be related to slow internet connections.


Turns out status dot solana page is lying to its own users. If you go into the Solana official groups, you can see dozens of people complaining about failing transactions, missing balances, transactions not being processed, etc. Users are repeatedly questioning the validity of the status dot solana page that shows 100 percent uptime even when the network was down, and even Coinbase flagged it as down.

Reddit user

‘Slowdown’, Not a Crash

Some users have said that this is just another slowdown instead of a crash. Crypto exchange Coinbase warned users that the SOL network had experienced a momentary downgraded performance with failed transactions that could be retried:

Whatever the cause, most users are complaining about lack of decentralisation and a dearth of security measures in the network.

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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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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 Cardano Crypto News Crypto Staking Metaverse NFTs Solana

5 Interesting Solana NFT Projects Launching Soon

Earlier in the week, Crypto News Australia published a guide on the five most interesting NFT projects launching on the Cardano blockchain this month. Follow this article for the low down on the five most interesting projects set for launch on the Solana (SOL) blockchain this month.

SolGame

SolGame allows NFTs to be traded new or on the secondhand market.

SolGame, a win-to-earn platform and Squid Game crypto fan project, is powered by a collection of 3,333 unique NFTs. Players can collect HD NFTs and generate passive income by holding specific NFTs. The project includes ultra-rare, animated drops, and cross-platform gaming. The concept allows users to mint new or trade SolGame NFTs on the secondhand market to make up their team, and participate in the daily competition for a chance to win.

Aurory Project

Encounter NPCs and Nefties in the Aurory game universe.

Aurory ($AURY) is a P2E (play-to-earn) desktop game in which players are invited to explore a rich and diverse universe. Players can travel across two different areas and biomes, called “Antik” and “Cryptos”, where they will meet an array of “NPCs” and “Nefties”, magical creatures which can be caught or traded. $AURY token can be earned via PvE and PvP game modes and through staking, while also tradable through a traditional DEX on Aurory’s in-game marketplace.

StarLaunch

StarLaunch is the first insured IDO launchpad and incubator for SOL projects.

StarLaunch, an Initial DEX Offering (IDO) launchpad for the SOL blockchain, is set for imminent launch. The project is an incubator for blockchain projects built atop SOL, which aims to connect projects with a community of backers. StarLaunch is the first insured IDO launchpad and incubator for SOL projects, with a stated goal of connecting its “community of backers with trusted and thoroughly vetted Solana blockchain projects”.

SolCaps

Customisable SolCaps.

SolCaps is a collection of 1,616 unique and randomly created NFTs and as a project aims to gather different users from different blockchains through fashion, specifically caps with crypto designs. The project is adamant that the community making it possible must have a voice and a vote on the future of SolCaps. This means that the project will donate to NGOs and the community will decide the best cause to help.

The SolCaps NFTs will be available for minting at a price determined through a vote by the community via the project’s Discord. Each item has a unique design based on different cryptocurrencies and will be available for users to use for a profile picture on Twitter or Discord, for example.

Dessert Girls

Aime, one of the Dessert Girls available for purchase.

Consisting of 2,222 algorithmically generated NFTs, Dessert Girls is a first-generation collection with a future breeding feature that will live in the Sweet Metaverse. Owning a Dessert Girl NFT will be the starting point, with players able to buy a Dessert Boy to make a couple. Each NFT will have visible physical traits but also character traits. After minting, the project will add ‘trait-extras’, allowing for customisation on the second market.

The Sweet Metaverse will make use of $SWEET coin, which will hold utility in the metaverse as a currency. The coin will be distributed to Dessert Girls holders at the start of 2022.

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Crypto News Solana Sports

Michael Jordan Jumps into Web3 With Solana-Based App for Athletes

Six-time NBA champion and basketball legend Michael Jordan is diving into Web3 with a new app called HEIR, designed as a fan engagement platform built on the Solana blockchain.

Connecting Fans to their Favourite Athletes

According to Variety, Jordan is launching HEIR alongside his son, Jeffrey Jordan, together with marketing consultant Daniel George and Jeron Smith, co-founder and CEO of Steph Curry’s media company Unanimous. The firm has raised US$10 million in seed funding from several VC firms including Thrive Capital and Solana Ventures, and it’s expected to be launched in 2022.

HEIR Inc is the firm, and its first product is Heir.app, designed to allow pro athletes from all fields to connect and engage with their fans, especially targeting generation Zs and millennials. As Jeffrey Jordan explained, the Jordan brand has “cultivated a loyal community for over 35 years – the focus now is passing that legacy on to the next generation”.

The app will have its own token minted on Solana, which users can leverage to get exclusive access to athletes’ VIP seats and receive unique first-person NFT drops. Supporters will also have the chance to buy one-time digital assets or join an athletes’ “huddle”.

Solana and Web3

Solana (SOL) has been one of the best-performing DeFi tokens this year. On November 5, Solana’s price surged to almost US$250 following a US$8 million Web3 investment by Syndica, which is building a next-generation blockchain infrastructure for the Solana ecosystem.

However, Solana recently suffered a DDoS attack, which jammed the network and caused huge transaction delays. The token didn’t suffer a huge price drop, but the incident did raise concerns about the security of its consensus algorithm, Proof of History (PoH).

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Binance Coin Crypto News Market Analysis Solana Trading

Top 3 Coins to Watch Today: BNB, SOL, MATIC – December 17 Trading Analysis

Let’s take a closer look at today’s altcoins showing breakout signals. We’ll explain what the coin is, then dive into the trading charts and provide some analysis to help you decide.

1. Binance Coin (BNB)

Binance BNB is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange globally, based on daily trading volume. Binance aims to bring cryptocurrency exchanges to the forefront of world financial activity. Aside from being the largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has launched a whole ecosystem of functionalities for its users. The Binance network includes the Binance Chain, Binance Smart Chain, Binance Academy, Trust Wallet, and Research projects, which all employ the powers of blockchain technology to bring new-age finance to the world. Binance Coin is an integral part of the successful functioning of many of the Binance sub-projects.

BNB Price Analysis

At the time of writing, BNB is ranked the 3rd cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$548.67. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:

Source: TradingView

After a 60% decline from August to September, BNB has ranged between $650.23 and $516.55.

The recent rally was approaching probable resistance near $610.33 but could be aiming for stops above the relatively equal highs near $560.21. Continuation of the bullish move could target the daily gap near $578.12.

Aggressive bulls might add to positions near $557.67 and $550.32. Price action near $528.66 may be more likely to provide support – if it gets there – during any retracements.

Relatively equal lows clustered around $487.47 seem likely to be swept if the bearish trend resumes. If this move occurs, the price might find support at the significant higher-timeframe level near $445.90.

2. Solana (SOL)

Solana SOL is a highly functional open-source project that banks on blockchain technology’s permissionless nature to provide decentralised finance (DeFi) solutions. The Solana protocol is designed to facilitate decentralised app (DApp) creation. It aims to improve scalability by introducing a proof-of-history (PoH) consensus combined with the underlying proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus of the blockchain.

SOL Price Analysis

At the time of writing, SOL is ranked the 5th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$186.04. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:

Source: TradingView

SOL retraced nearly 65% from its high before finding a low during last week. Since then, the price has been sweeping stops on both sides of its local range as the current consolidation sets up the next move.

Aggressive bulls might bid near $172.34, although a sweep of the stops near $165.61 could reach below the next swing low into possible support near $150.12. A continued downtrend might run into the weekly gap near $144.26.

Some bears might add more shorts near $195.87, although a push to $210.66 is reasonable. A daily candle close over the swing high near $230.04 could suggest that a longer-term trend reversal is in play, with bulls possibly entering on a retracement near $245.32 for monthly high prices.

3. Polygon (MATIC)

Polygon MATIC is the first well-structured, easy-to-use platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Its core component is Polygon SDK, a modular, flexible framework that supports building multiple types of applications. The MATIC token will continue to exist and will play an increasingly important role, securing the system and enabling governance.

MATIC Price Analysis

At the time of writing, MATIC is ranked the 14th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$2.18. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:

Source: TradingView

Q4 2021 marked a turning point for MATIC, with the price rocketing up almost 125% from its lows to probable resistance beginning near $2.45.

The price is currently struggling with the area between $1.88 and $2.23. This region could provide support after a close above, or resistance after a close below. 

A retracement could reach into the daily gap and possible support around $2.08. A more bearish shift in the marketplace will likely aim for the relatively equal lows near $1.92, and the potential support just below that begins around $1.85.

Continuation to the upside will likely target the recent monthly highs near $2.30. However, probable resistance beginning at $2.36 and $2.42 could cap or slow down this move.

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Where to Buy or Trade Altcoins?

These coins have high liquidity on Binance Exchange, so that could help with trading on AUD/USDT/BTC pairs. And if you’re looking at buying and HODLing cryptos, then Swyftx Exchange is an easy-to-use popular choice in Australia.

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Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum Hackers Solana

Solana Reportedly Suffers DDOS Attack Casting Doubt on Proof-of-History

Solana has suffered a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that jammed the network and led to huge delays, but managed to stay online through it all.

A DDoS attack is generally when an organised “botnet” (a large number of coordinated devices) take to a blockchain’s network at once in order to overload the system and choke traffic speeds to the point that it causes the network to fail and go offline.

As the new cool kid on the block, Solana is currently the fastest blockchain in the crypto space and has been hailed as the “Eth Killer”. Praised as the answer to Ethereum’s network congestion issues during times of high traffic, Solana offers much faster processing times and lower transaction fees.

Has Solana Sacrificed Network Security For Speed?

The DDoS attack has raised the question over whether Solana has sacrificed network security for speed. The issue of Solana’s proof-of-history consensus model not being sufficiently secure against attacks such as this one has opened up discussion online. Justin Bons, founder and CIO of crypto funds investment management company CyberCapital, breaks down the concerns over the security of the Solana blockchain in the Twitter post below. He says that due to the Solana network’s deterministic block creation mode, it is possible to predict and attack the next block producers in line.

In this week’s Grayscale Investments report, the world’s largest crypto fund management firm also voiced its concerns over the Solana blockchain’s consensus mechanism as a potential risk: “The Solana consensus mechanism uses a new blockchain technology that is not widely used, and may not function as intended. There may be flaws in the cryptography underlying the network, including flaws that affect the functionality of the Solana network or make the network vulnerable to attack.”

This is not the first time Solana has suffered a DDoS attack. In September the network suffered two attacks that stopped processing transactions and took Solana offline for a short time. The project’s developer has tweeted that these outages from attacks are all just “growing pains” and that he is still insanely bullish for Solana.

Many DApps have been integrating Solana into their projects, including the recent partnership with Brave browser announced on stage at Breakpoint 2021 (a crypto conference organised by Solana) in Portugal last month.

Solana Proof of History Explained

If you’re keen to get a sense of how Solana’s consensus mechanism works, be sure to check out this explanatory video below.