Category: Tokens

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Crypto News DeFi Solana Tokens

Solana Skyrockets to 4th-Largest Crypto Amid SOL-Based Web 3.0 Investment

Solana (SOL) has been thriving in the crypto market recently, reaching a new all-time high of US$248.45 on November 3, at around 9pm Eastern time.

SOL Overtakes ADA

SOL has risen in price by 23.56 percent in the past seven days, trading at US$246 at the time of writing. The token has had a surprising performance this year, up more than 17,000 percent since the first quarter of 2021. 

SOL/USD chart. Source: Messari.io

The token now holds a US$72.20 billion market cap, and 24hr trading volumes have skyrocketed to US$2.8 billion.

After the price surge, SOL flipped Cardano (ADA) to become the fourth-largest crypto by market cap. Meanwhile, Cardano has been struggling even after the release of its smart contracts, trading at US$1.98 at press time, down 11.17 percent in a month.

Solana Gaining Ground Amid Positive Newsflows

The price surge follows several promising DeFi projects and the integration with Crypto.com, which will allow users to deposit and withdraw USDC via Solana.

Another strong boost for Solana came after the announcement of a US$8 million seed round completed by Syndica, which is building the “next-generation blockchain infrastructure for the Solana ecosystem”.

Besides, two of Solana’s biggest DeFi projects are both decentralised exchanges with yield-generating features, and they hold around US$2 billion in total locked value (TLV) each.

The open interest for SOL has been high as well. On October 26, SOL’s derivatives market reached a record-high US$1.86 billion – spiking 123 percent in a month.

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Blockchain Privacy Tokens

Internet of Things Privacy Token $IOTX Soars 71% Overnight Amid New Partnerships

IOTX is a smart contract, layer one blockchain and IoT (Internet of Things) platform that aims to fuel the future of Web 3 through connecting the physical and digital worlds.

IOTX allows us to secure data from billions of smart devices and extract value from it with next-gen dApps. IOTX’s mission is to democratise access to the new machine economy and return power to the people.

Join the Revolution

The Internet of Things is a multi-trillion-dollar industry owned by centralised corporations that control our devices, mine our data and make huge profits, with no value being returned to the users who generate it. IOTX is here to change the status quo and build a future that empowers users, not corporations.

We envision a world where everyday people own and control their devices as well as the data and value they generate. A vision we call the Internet of Trusted Things.

The IoTeX Vision

IoTeX Announces Big Partnership Deals and $IOTX Price Pumps

Travala.com and IOTX announced their partnership via Travala’s official Twitter:

The other partnership deal with NOWPayments was also announced this week on NOWPayments’ official Twitter:

This huge news of real-world partnerships helped boost the price of IOTX, as well as a presentation given to investors by Larry Pang, IOTX head of business development, and Xinxin Fan, head of cryptography, on Trusted Vehicle Tracking with IoTeX and Pebble Tracker. See the full presentation below, uploaded on November 4.

IoTeX ($IOTX) Price Analysis

Source: CoinGecko

Just two months ago, IOTX surged 215 percent in a single day after listing on Coinbase Pro, as reported by Crypto News Australia.

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Crypto News Facebook Tokens

Microsoft Follows Facebook Into The Metaverse

Microsoft is hot on the heels of Facebook, now known as Meta, and has entered the metaverse race by introducing 3D avatars and immersive meetings, according to a Tweet by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Soon after Facebook announced it would be rebranding as Meta to reflect its engagement with the metaverse, Microsoft is also now gearing up to launch its own version, “Mesh”, which will likely focus more on the corporate world. Nadella tweeted about the metaverse, a space where digital avatars of people can interact at work and play, saying that it is “not only transforming how we see the world but how we participate in it”.

Nadella’s tweet included a video that shows how Microsoft plans to integrate itself into the virtual world. Microsoft intends Mesh to be a collaborative platform for shared virtual immersive experiences on Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Meshes into the Metaverse

According to Microsoft officials, Mesh for Teams will start to roll out in preview during the first half of 2022, with a set of pre-built immersive spaces for both corporate and social meetings. Microsoft has also indicated it will add tools to allow customers to customise their own spaces.

Mesh for Teams as a feature of Teams will “combine the mixed-reality capabilities of Microsoft Mesh, which allows people in different physical locations to join collaborative and shared holographic experiences, with the productivity tools of Teams, where people can join virtual meetings, send chats, collaborate on shared documents, and more”.

While Facebook – now Meta – says it is dedicating its efforts to the future of the internet “more than any other company in the world”, Microsoft’s new take to Teams is a massive step in the right direction for metaverse fans.

Microsoft intends to utilise AI to “listen” to users’ voices and thus animate their avatars. “We are able to interpret your vocal cues to animate that avatar, so it feels present [as if] it’s there with you,” said Katie Kelly, principal product manager for Microsoft Mesh.

Facebook Shifts Its Focus

As Facebook/Meta deals with issues of privacy, security, and its failure to control fake news, misinformation and hate speech, the rebrand has many speculating it’s merely a diversionary tactic to diffuse criticism against the company.

Although Facebook has said it intends to build the metaverse “responsibly” and has vowed to invest US$50 million into building toward this goal, many remain doubtful.

The news of Facebook’s rebranding has, however, been very bullish for other blockchain-based metaverse projects. Since the announcement, The Sandbox (SAND) surged 158 percent, and Decentraland (MANA), as well as Axie Infinity (AXS), have also seen big surges in price.

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Blockchain Crypto News DeFi Tokens

Upcoming Parachain Auction Sends Polkadot Soaring

Polkadot (DOT) has been rising lately, reaching new all-time highs after news of the upcoming launch of parachain auctions on the Polkadot platform.

DOT Reaches New ATH

Polkadot announced the developing of parachain auctions in early 2021. As Crypto News Australia reported last month, the protocol has released dates for the first set of parachain auctions, prompting an overnight DOT token price surge of more than 18 percent.

This week, the Polkadot team announced that a motion had been passed to Polkadot’s council. If approved, developers will be able to register their parachains from November 5 and seek crowdfunding.

The excitement surrounding the launch of parachain auctions is the force behind DOT’s bullish rally, which surged 16 percent this week, reaching an ATH of US$53.18 at press time, beating its previous ATH of $49.35 in May.

Parachains are blockchains integrated within the Polkadot network that can be customised and optimised for a wide range of specific use cases. Unlike Ethereum, Polkadot allows its developers to create their own independent chains and set specific parameters, such as transaction fees, block times, mining rewards, etc.

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DeFi Scams Tokens

Rug Pull: ‘Monkey Jizz’ DeFi Token Founders’ Alleged Exit with $300,000 of BNB

What could possibly go wrong with a new DeFi Token launch named Monkey Jizz, released on PancakeSwap (running on the Binance Smart Chain) by a team of unknown developers and a cartoon monkey with a peeled banana as the face of its branding? Answer: everything.

Warnings Came Too Late For Some Investors

Warnings about the MJIZZ scam were tweeted about but it was too late for some, as the “dickheads” behind the project pulled the rug, stealing 500 BNB in total of Monkey Jizz investors’ money, worth US$300,000.

Like most refined scams, the Monkey Jizz project went to added lengths to reassure the community that it was a real project and would not rug. The website (which is now unsurprisingly down) FAQ read: “We understand everyone’s concerns and have been victims of scams ourselves in the past; we get it“. A doxxed “monkey master” was even posted with a photo of a guy named Cal, purported to be a real person to reassure buyers the project was legitimate.

As it turns out, ‘Cal’ is some otherwise pseudonymous bald guy sitting on a beach in Thailand, his photo watermarked with the logo of a local nightclub. According to Reddit, some users had done some online detective work and matched the photo to a Facebook account.

Presale Listed on PinkSale

The Monkey Jizz Life crew had also invested a lot of time and energy on the marketing side. They had all the basics: Twitter address, Telegram page, website (all now inactive), as well as doing a live AMA on YouTube with crypto influencer Travladd Crypto. The crew also had a presale listed on token launch platform PinkSale:

Rug pulls are becoming increasingly commonplace in DeFi, especially on PancakeSwap because it runs on BSC (Binance Smart Chain), where the transaction fees are insanely low compared to UniSwap, which runs on ETH. Buyers beware. Just because a project seems legit, does AMAs with influencers, and even goes to the trouble to highlight that it has an “anti-rug” mechanism built into its tokenomics, do not fall for it.

A similarly sad outcome occurred earlier this month with the SQUID token, which rugged on investors who said they weren’t able to sell their tokens on PancakeSwap.

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Blockchain Crypto News NFTs Privacy Tokens

Quentin Tarantino to Auction 7 Unseen ‘Pulp Fiction’ Scenes as NFTs

Quentin Tarantino will auction off seven never-before-seen Pulp Fiction scenes as non-fungible tokens amid the expanding NFT craze, the legendary film director announced earlier this week.

The Secret Is Out

The NFT market has truly exploded in 2021, and Tarantino is the latest to join in on the mania. Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction, released in 1994, quickly became a cult classic, earning US$213.9 million on a US$10 million budget, and its writer/director an Oscar for best screenplay.

Quentin Tarantino announces his Pulp Fiction NFTs. Source: gamingdeputy.com

And to keep fans on their toes, Tarantino will now auction off seven NFTs that will include previously unseen content only accessible to its buyers. The collectibles will be “Secret NFTs” built upon the SCRT Labs’ Secret Network, which will enable the NFTs to have both a public-facing and a secret element.

The collection will be auctioned off on OpenSea and will be built on Secret Network, a blockchain focused on privacy. Secret Network allows its users to post content that has hidden embeds. Secret NFTs are tokens issued on the network that allow their creators to include public and private metadata, with the choice of displaying ownership or keeping it confidential.

The public-facing element of the NFTs will be uncut and unreleased scenes from the film, each NFT containing a ‘secret content’ item that will only be accessible by the buyer. Among the seven NFTs, the secret elements will include the first uncut handwritten scripts of the film and exclusive custom commentary from Tarantino himself, in which he reveals secrets about the film and about himself.

“I’m excited to be presenting these exclusive scenes from Pulp Fiction to fans,” Tarantino said, adding:

Secret Network and Secret NFTs provide a whole new world of connecting fans and artists and I’m thrilled to be a part of that.

Quentin Tarantino, director, screenwriter and producer

Guy Zyskind, co-founder of Secret Network and CEO of SCRT Labs, highlighted the power and obsessive madness surrounding NFTs in saying that “NFTs could be the most disruptive technology to come out of this decade”. He continued:

The art community is alive with innovation and the media is actively exploring all the potential use cases associated with the technology. Now, we have privacy and access controls courtesy of Secret Network. Ultimately, that will enable a whole litany of new potential use cases.

Guy Zyskind, CEO, SCRT Labs, and co-founder, Secret Network

Hollywood Presents: the Blockchain

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Hollywood is expanding its reach into the blockchain. Earlier this year, it was announced that Zero Contact, a pandemic-themed picture with Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins in the lead role will premiere on the new NFT platform Vuele. The film will be the world’s first to be offered for sale as an NFT.

Furthering the role of blockchain in Hollywood is Roman Coppola, a member of one of Hollywood’s most influential filmmaking families. He and his two sisters have founded Decentralized Pictures (DCP), a decentralised film financing platform based on blockchain technology.

The company aims to use its blockchain-powered platform to decentralise the film financing process, hoping it will lead to the discovery and support of many underrepresented filmmakers.

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Australia Crypto Exchange Crypto News Cryptocurrency Law Tokens

$100 Million Class Action Lawsuit Looms Against Aussie Crypto Qoin

Queensland-based Australian crypto dispute specialist law firm Salerno is preparing a A$100 million class-action suit against the issuers of Qoin, a controversial token promoted by the backers of Bartercard, a 30-year-old trading exchange based on the Gold Coast.

Salerno Law began collecting expressions of interest just a week ago, seeing more than 100 merchants, agents, consumers and other clients declare their intention to join the class action.

The firm says it is investigating potential breaches of the Corporations Act, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Act, and Australian consumer law, including (as quoted):

  • misleading and deceptive conduct;
  • making false or misleading representations;
  • pyramid selling of financial products;
  • failure to comply with financial services obligations and consumer guarantees; and
  • fraud.

Bartercard Australia Directors Linked to Lawsuit

The lawsuit targets Southport-based BPS Financial Limited, controlled by co-directors Tony Wiese and Raj Pathak who also oversee Bartercard, a firm that allows businesses to exchange goods and services without direct cash payments.

BPS launched Qoin in late 2019 and claims to have more than 35,000 merchants signed up, along with 50,000-plus “wallet holders’’ who have acquired the digital product. It’s estimated that in excess of A$20 million worth of Qoin has been transacted since.

Qoin tokens can be swapped as a digital currency only via Block Trade Exchange Limited, aka the BTX Exchange, which is linked to BPS and has the same two directors, Wiese and Pathak. Critics allege this is a closed system that creates a potential conflict of interest.

According to Salerno’s website, “Qoin has entered into an exclusive trading arrangement with BTX Exchange which, according to its terms, limits users to one daily transaction with a $125 sell limit per day per person, subject to buyer demand.

It has been alleged by holders and merchants that they are either unable to accept Qoin payments or exchange the token for fiat currency due to the terms of BTX Exchange, leaving them with a token of no utility. For merchants, this is alleged to have caused a significant loss in revenue.

salernolaw.com.au

BPS Executive Denies Wrongdoing

Senior BPS executive Andrew Barker denies the company has done anything wrong and blames the impending lawsuit on a single disgruntled merchant. “We have reviewed the alleged potential grievances and consider them baseless,” the company stated on its own website. “We have received no direct communication and therefore have no further comment to make at this time.”

The threatened lawsuit follows Qoin’s expulsion earlier this year by Blockchain Australia (BCA), who in a statement in February asked for its name and logo to be removed from Qoin marketing material but did not provide details as to why.

Qoin’s issuers responded angrily that the timing of BCA’s statement “aligns with the emergence of false and misleading comments … made by certain antagonists on social media platforms, including a previous board member”. This was in reference to a former BCA director who had previously alleged in a tweet that Qoin was the nation’s “biggest crypto scam’’.

Qoin Clients Voice Concerns on TrustPilot

Consumer review website Trustpilot lists several more recent Qoin critics, among them former clients and representatives:

QOIN are basically worthless. Don’t believe me? Try selling some through BTX exchange as directed to by Qoin. BTX don’t want them either. Not many retailers accepting them in NSW. They wiped my wallet clear and kept my money after I complained. RUN a mile … and keep running.

Peter, Trustpilot.com reviews

Can’t cash out and the local “recruiter” was rude and forceful. His sales pitch was basically telling you to avoid paying tax by trading a dodgy QOIN you can’t sell.

Jackson, Trustpilot.com reviews

Absolutely a Ponzi scheme. Can’t sell. If you are lucky enough to it’s at half the value … Disgraceful they are allowed to continue operating in this country.

Jih, Trustpilot.com reviews

Crypto News urges Australian and New Zealand retailers and local businesses to stay vigilant and do your research before getting involved in any new ventures offering “free” cryptocurrency.

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Blockchain Crypto News Facebook Gaming Tokens

Metaverse Tokens Soar Amid Facebook Announcement, SAND Up 158% in a Week

It’s no secret that the gaming sector is the hot focus of crypto right now, with social media giant Facebook announcing its re-branding to “Meta”. The ripple effect has seen The Sandbox token SAND surge 158 percent since the announcement. And it’s not the only one.

I believe the metaverse is the next chapter for the internet. And it’s the next chapter for our company too.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook/Meta CEO

Zuckerberg added: “We’re a company that focuses on connecting people.” He says that “while most other tech companies focus on how people interact with technology, we focus on building technology so people can interact with each other”.

The Facebook name only represents one product, Zuckerberg says. Facebook is rebranding to Meta in order to “encompass everything that we do. Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company.”

As an example of Meta’s ambitions, a partnership with sunglasses manufacturer RayBan aims to produce augmented reality glasses to interact with the real world for immersive experiences that include: displays, audio, input, haptics, hand tracking, eye tracking, mixed reality, sensors, graphics, computer vision, avatars, perceptual science, AI and more.

Metaverse Tokens Soar Upon News

Although Facebook is building its own metaverse, the news has been bullish for other blockchain-based metaverse projects besides The Sandbox (SAND). Decentraland (MANA) and Axie Infinity (AXS) are among others to have seen big spikes in price since the Facebook/Meta announcement.

SAND token performance. Source: coinmarketcap.com

Celebrities are also starting to enter the metaverse, with rapper Snoop Dogg announcing in September that he will build his own house – or a virtual reconstruction of his mansion, at least – in the Sandbox Metaverse and offer his exclusive NFT collection to fans, perform live concerts and interact with players.

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Ethereum Industries Loopring Markets NFTs Tokens

Loopring Token Soars Over 100% on Rumour of GameStop NFT Marketplace Collaboration

GameStop, the American video game, consumer electronics and gaming merchandise retailer, is rumoured to be working with Loopring (LRC), an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, to build an NFT marketplace, causing its native token to make sizeable gains.

As speculation about GameStop’s NFT marketplace increases, Loopring’s LRC token has climbed over 100 percent in the past seven days, following various signs pointing to an unnamed partnership to help develop blockchain technology with the gaming giant.

According to a post on GameStop Due Diligence (GMEdd), a website focused on the corporation, a leak in the Loopring GitHub public repository appears to indicate a possible collaboration with GameStop Corporation (GME) for a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace. The code posted on GitHib reveals that GameStop NFT is built on EIP-1155, which allows the creation of fungible, non-fungible, and semi-fungible tokens in one single token standard.

Additionally, the amended code in the branch “NFT-DEV” under the GitHub commit titled ‘NFT feature’ makes reference to ‘gameStopMeta’ and an IPFS URL, a well-known distributed system for storing and accessing files, websites, applications and data.

Loopring’s ‘NFT feature’ code reveals several references to GameStop.

Nobody knows for certain what GameStop’s NFT division has been working on. Loopring is keeping secrets as well, with CEO Daniel Wang disclosing that the Ethereum-based technology company is “working with a premium partner who demands they keep quiet”.

Loopring Solving the Gas Problem

According to Loopring’s official website, it boasts the industry’s most secure scaling method, which is independent of external validators, consensus, or crypto-economic assumptions.

High Ethereum gas prices make it difficult for ERC-20 projects to run any microtransaction payments, defeating the idea of using the Ethereum network for GameStop’s primary use cases – forcing it to consider Layer 2 solutions or other blockchains.

Additionally, Loopring announced it will be enabling NFT support, “allowing anyone to mint and trade NFTs instantly and gas-free”, adding that the functionality is being used as the foundation of a new NFT marketplace launching soon.

Loopring Price Skyrockets

Following breadcrumbs picked up by GMEdd, and the progress of the project, the price of Loopring has shot up. Since the beginning of October, Loopring LRC/USD has risen from US$0.36 to $0.58, and is now trading at $1.58, smashing its previous all-time high in a matter of days.

LRC/USDT price: Tradingview
Categories
Crypto News DeFi Scams Tokens

DeFi Investor Loses $470K as Dog-Themed Token AnubisDAO Drained of $60 Million

Investors looking for the next Dog-themed memecoin have found themselves on the backside of a rug pull, draining an estimated US$60 million from the project’s liquidity pool.

Participants in a brand-new project called AnubisDAO contributed ETH in exchange for ANKH-tokens that would have been distributed as soon as the sale ended. The sale started on October 28 and attracted considerable interest from investors, who contributed 13.6K ETH (US$60 million) in under 24 hours.

Even though the project didn’t have a website, investors still poured US$60 million into the initial token sale. Twenty hours into the sale, the ETH in the pool was sent to a different address before the smart contract was activated, leaving investors with ANKH tokens and no liquid market for them.

Since October 28, the Anubis official Twitter page has been silent, with no mention of the disappearance of millions of dollars.

Coins being transfered to multiple accounts: Etherescan

Phishing Attack or Elaborate Scheme?

Copper Launch was the token launch platform used by AnubisDAO and it stated in a post that “the launch was configured to last 24 hours, but before the launch finished, the token liquidity was pulled by the creator of the launch from the LBP smart contract that housed the funds”.

Later, @Beerus tweeted under an alternate account called @cryptofan777, attempting to clear the air. The tweeter claiming to be @Beerus said they had not personally drained the funds; they had probably been the victim of a phishing attack, and attached a screenshot of an email with a potentially malicious attachment from an emailer posing as 0xSisyphus.

In a later statement, Copper said that “other accounts on Twitter that are known to be AnubisDAO affiliates claim that the auction creator’s wallet account was either compromised or that they were a bad actor”.

At the time of writing, a Twitter account was under police investigation, though it’s too early to draw any conclusions as the situation is still developing. But the community hopes that the exploiter is identified, and the stolen funds returned soon.

The Importance of DYOR

One investor told CNBC that he lost US$450,000, though admitting that he didn’t investigate the project thoroughly prior to investing. “We, in crypto, tend to have a ‘buy first, do research later’ mentality,” he said:

One of the most important things to do before investing in a project is to do your own research (DYOR), investigate the website, Twitter, team members, and any other information available to verify the authenticity of a project. In June, Mark Cuban called for DeFi regulation after a DeFi token collapsed from US$65 to US$0.00000003 on him, with others taking a starker position: