Category: Tokens

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Blockchain Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs Social media Tokens

‘TikTok Top Moments’ NFTs Launch Featuring Lil Nas X and Grimes

TikTok is set to release a series of NFT collectibles with celebrity partners including American rapper Lil Nas X, Canadian musician/producer Grimes and NFT entrepreneur Gary ‘Vee’ Vaynerchuk.

TikTok Passes One Billion Active Users

The hugely popular Chinese video-sharing and social media app, which now boasts more than one billion monthly active users worldwide, will issue six different NFT drops based on what it terms “culturally significant” videos shared on the service.

Rapper Lil Nas X leads the TikTok NFT rollout. Source: Billboard magazine

The TikTok Top Moments collection kicks off on October 6 with Lil Nas X as the subject of the first drop, with an NFT based on a TikTok video by Seattle-based artist Rudy Willingham. The video, a stop-motion tribute to the rapper’s Montero (Call Me By Your Name) music video, has already garnered millions of interactions via the service.

Subsequent ‘Moments’ in the collection will feature Gary Vee, social media personality Bella Poarch, and musician Grimes, who in March this year sold her crypto art NFT collection for US$6 million.

NFT ‘pioneer’ artist Grimes features in the Moments collection. Source: foxnews.com

TikTok will offer both one-off and larger “limited edition” runs of its NFT collectibles. Other artists in the pipeline include Brittany Broski (aka Kombucha Girl), rappers Curtis Roach and FNMeka, and TikTok video regular Jess Marciante.

TikTok plans to showcase all six of its one-off videos at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York, this month.

NFTs Minted on Immutable X

The NFTs will be minted on Immutable X, a layer-2 scaling solution that runs on top of Ethereum. Immutable X attracts lower transaction fees and faster completion times than Ethereum’s mainnet, plus it uses significantly less energy than Ethereum’s proof-of-work consensus model.

The first six months of 2021 have seen some US$2.5 billion worth of trading volume across the top NFT marketplaces. Since then, however, leading marketplace OpenSea has recorded more than US$3.4 billion in volume in August alone.

That same month, Audius, a music streaming platform on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, partnered with TikTok to create TikTok Sounds. As a result, the $AUDIO token surged 200 percent.

All very ironic when you consider that just a month earlier, TikTok banned its users from promoting crypto-related financial products and services and also prohibited ads relating to crypto.

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto Exchange Crypto News Investing Tokens

Important Crypto ETF Decision Dates Coming Up in Late 2021

As worldwide interest grows in crypto, the need for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is growing along with it. Some countries and institutions have got on board, filed, and have been approved, while the decision for others still looms.

What Is a Cryptocurrency ETF?

A crypto ETF is a fund consisting of cryptocurrencies. While most ETFs track an index or basket of assets, a crypto ETF tracks the price of one or more digital tokens. The price fluctuates daily based on investor sales and purchases, and provides many benefits to investors. These include significantly lower crypto ownership costs and outsourcing of the steep learning curve associated with trading cryptos. 

For the crypto enthusiast, ETFs are the holy grail that will boost liquidity and the adoption of cryptocurrencies for the purpose of investment.

Crypto ETFs are trading in a number of countries, but thus far US regulation has denied attempts to offer ETFs on exchanges. Many companies who have applied to the Securities and Exchange Commission are expecting to hear the outcome later this year.

ETF Timeline – Important Dates Source: Arcane Research
ETF Timeline Source: Arcane Research

Interest in ETFs is Growing

Entering the crypto market can be challenging, with concerns including price volatility, market manipulation, and lack of fundamentals to properly gauge value. ETFs offer an easier way to access the cryptosphere. Instead of trading cryptos on an exchange, ETFs trade on market exchanges such as the NASDAQ or NYSE, thereby circumventing the often daunting process of purchasing cryptos.

Crypto News Australia recently reported on a survey conducted regarding institutional interest in digital assets and crypto-based products such as ETFs across the US, Europe and Asia. It was found that over half were already invested in cryptos, while nine in 10 found crypto appealing and saw the potential upside.

Bitcoin-ETFs Rising Globally

Canada, the first country in the world to offer ETFs, launched a third Bitcoin-ETF earlier this year with the world’s lowest management fee, at only 0.4 percent per annum. Dubai has become the first city-state in the Middle East to offer ETFs and has launched a Bitcoin-ETF which is listed on the Nasdaq Dubai Exchange.

It is expected that Australia will see its first crypto ETF soon, as there is growing sentiment among millennials to retire at the age of 50 via investment in ETFs.

Earlier this year it was reported that the Australian crypto ETF could launch on the ASX in 2021. The Aussie ETF is currently delayed due to uncertainty in deciding how the arrangement with custodians will work. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is, however, in the final stages of consultation to decide if a crypto ETF will be allowed to trade locally.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Investing Tokens Trading

Office Hamster Beats the S&P 500 by Trading Crypto Tokens

Crypto trading hamster Mr Goxx has been outperforming the S&P 500 since June, using a device called the “Goxx Box” to give signals and make purchases during a live stream on Twitch to an audience that follows him.

Mr Goxx, based in Germany, has been independently trading a portfolio of cryptos that has so far seen the rodent outperform Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, the Nasdaq 100, Bitcoin, and the S&P 500.

The S&P Dow Jones recently launched a range of new crypto-focused indices, strengthening its position in the crypto world.

Mr Goxx trades according to a system built on an infrastructure called the “Goxx Box”, which allows him to choose a cryptocurrency and send signals to traders.

How the Goxx Box Works

Mr Goxx’s human caretaker designed a system that uses a hamster “intentional” wheel to choose one of about 30 cryptos to trade, and two tubes – or “decision tunnels” – the critter crawls through to indicate whether the selected crypto should be bought or sold.

The “Goxx Box”. Source: Twitter/@Mrgoxx

Mr Goxx vs The Market

The current top cryptos held by the hamster include Tron, Ripple’s XRP, Cardano’s ADA, and Ether. Since Mr Goxx started trading in June, he has grown his portfolio nearly 24 percent. His portfolio was funded with the euro equivalent of US$390 and his anonymous caretaker and business partner has explained that the trades Mr Goxx makes are automatically set to 20 euro increments.

Since September 24, Mr Goxx has generated profits of 77 euros, and his portfolio hit a high of about US$580 in mid-September.

There are plans to give Mr Goxx more control and let him intentionally pick his ‘buy’ amount if the interest in his channel keeps growing.

Mr Goxx’s anonymous human caretaker

To get a better sense of how Mr Goxx operates, this performance review posted to YouTube should be of assistance:

It’s an Impressive Start But Be Wary

Given that Mr Goxx has only been trading since June, his performance is certainly impressive, although human traders should proceed with caution when taking investment advice and be aware that growing a crypto portfolio takes time.

In May this year, Crypto News Australia reported on one trader who has been at it for 10 years and shares the lessons he has learned along the way.

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Australia Binance Binance Australia Tokens

Binance to Cease Offering Futures, Options and Leveraged Tokens in Australia

As of September 24, Binance users will no longer be able to use Futures, Options and Leveraged Tokens on the Binance.com platform as per the recent announcement.

To clarify the situation for Australian users, Binance Australia has reported to Crypto News: “We are aware of the recent announcement from Binance.com regarding its service changes for Australian users. The announcement has no direct impact on the services provided on Binance Australia. Our relationship with our users has not changed. Binance Australia is a digital currency exchange platform that enables Australian customers to easily buy and trade cryptocurrencies with the Australian Dollar (AUD). Binance Australia only offers spot conversion of fiat to digital currency and vice versa.”

Last month the company announced plans to restrict its derivative product offerings in Australia to comply with domestic regulations.

“Effective from 2021-09-24 09:00 AM (UTC), existing Australian users will have 90 days to reduce and close their positions for these products. Users will be able to top-up margin balances to prevent margin calls and liquidations, but they will not be able to increase or open new positions”.

Also recently, Binance introduced a mandatory KYC for all Binance users with a deadline of October 19 for any existing users to verify their accounts to continue using its services.

The new appointment of Leigh Travers (DigitalX) as Binance Australia CEO should help Binance establish a stronger framework around regulation in Australia as he has experience in the sector serving on the Board of Australia’s blockchain industry body.

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Blockchain Crypto News DeFi Tokens

ATOM Token Surges 25% in a Week Through Inter-Blockchain Growth

While the crypto market has been stagnating for the past couple of days, ATOM – Cosmos Network’s native token – reached new all-time highs overnight. 

ATOM Blowing Up

The ATOM/USDT pair had a 10 percent increase over the weekend and crossed the US$40 mark, making it one of the top-performing coins in the market – US$10 up in a single week and a 180 percent increase from a low of $8 on July 20. The token was trading $34 per coin at the time of writing. 

Source: Binance

Bulls are now in control of the Cosmos market, and some of the hype comes after numerous DeFi project integrations and other novelties, such as the launch of Sifchain, a decentralised exchange (DEX) that allows users to exchange assets between Cosmos and Ethereum.

Another boost for the ATOM token came after the recent launch of Emeris, Cosmos’s first functioning user interface for DeFi, introducing cross-chain exchange capabilities.

What is Cosmos Network?

Cosmos is usually called “the internet of blockchain” as it allows different blockchains to interact, share data, and transact tokens with each other. Every blockchain freely interacts and operates in the network through the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol. This mechanism allows information to flow through the network and reach its destined blockchain.

At its core, IBC is a method of securely exchanging data between two independent [sovereign] blockchains. This means that any two blockchains that support IBC can send communication back and forth in a permissionless manner. Previously, ATOM was relegated to the Cosmos Hub with regard to its utility as a governance token. It is now transferable and interoperable with all blockchains that support IBC.

Zarko Milosevic, chief scientist, Informal Systems

Since its debut, Cosmos has set itself apart from its competitors for its innovative approach to interoperability and blockchain customisation. Cosmos Hub is the first blockchain launched on the Cosmos Network, designed to act as a bridge and facilitate communication between different blockchains, called zones, by keeping track of their states.

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Crypto News DeFi Hackers Tokens

SushiSwap Hacked for $3M but Funds Returned Almost Immediately

A mystery rogue developer who allegedly drained 864.8 ETH (US$3 million) from a MISO auction has returned the funds to the original token contract.

SushiSwap’s token launch platform suffered a supply chain attack last week that targeted its ‘Jay Pegs Auto Mart’ auction contract.

The exploit was first identified on September 17 by Sushi’s CTO Joseph Delong, who tweeted a link to the transaction that drained the funds from the protocol.

According to Delong, an anonymous contractor injected malicious code into the MISO front end, replacing the original contract for the Jay Pegs Auto Mart token auction – a parody NFT project imitating the value of a 2007 Kia – with a personal Ethereum address. A total of 864.8 ETH was transferred to the address, but no other auctions were affected.

Threat of Legal Action Prompts Return of Funds

In a string of since-deleted tweets, Delong said that Sushi had “reason to believe” the attacker was eratos1122, a pseudonymous developer who worked with Sushi and other DeFi projects. Delong put up a trail of transactions linked to the hacker’s original address and an ultimatum was also posted threatening the hacker with legal action if the funds weren’t reinstated.

A couple of hours later, the hacker returned 865 ETH to the original MISO contract. Data from Etherscan showed that the hacker’s address was almost completely empty, with Delong himself confirming the news on Twitter.

Accused Developer Threatens Retaliation

It’s still not clear who the attacker was and Delong’s original tweets accusing the former MISO developer have been deleted. The accused person threatened to release some of the MISO code he was working on in the absence of an apology from Sushi and Delong.

While many saw this as a clear sign of the developer’s involvement in the incident, neither Sushi nor any of its founders have commented further on the issue.

Some among the crypto community have slated Sushi and Delong for their handling of the situation. With the protocol mostly built by anonymous developers, making accusations without a proper investigation has negatively affected Sushi’s reputation.

Just last month, a collective effort from the crypto community saved SushiSwap’s token fundraising platform from a potential US$350 million heist.

Almost simultaneous with the MISO exploit, SUSHI gained 23 percent in 24 hours following a growth spurt for decentralised exchange tokens (DEX).

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Crypto News DeFi Investing Tokens

AVAX Skyrockets Amid $230 Million Investment

Avalanche (AVAX) has completed a US$230 million investment round from several crypto funds and angel investors, catapulting its native token, AVAX, to a fresh all-time high of US$64. 

AVAX Token Surges 23% Amid Tokens Private Sale

The investment round was led by crypto funds Polychain and Three Arrows Capital. R/Crypto Fund, Dragonfly CMS, Collab + Currency and Lvna Capital are among the top investors that participated in the private sale, according to an announcement by the Avalanche Foundation. As per its blog post, Avalanche will use the funds to expand its operation in the DeFi space and support DeFi projects by providing grants, liquidity and token purchases.

Avalanche has quickly turned promise and potential into real-world impact and value creation for DeFi users and developers. The community of builders rallying around the network is a testament to its competitive edge, and there is still so much potential yet to be tapped at the intersection of institutional and decentralised finance on Avalanche.

Emin Gün Sirer, director, Avalanche Foundation

Avalanche completed the investment round in June but disclosed this latest news on September 16. The announcement quickly boosted the AVAX token by 23 percent, now trading at US$64.11 with a 24-hour trading volume of US$2,156,526,602, according to data from CoinGecko.

Further data shows AVAX outperformed its top 20 competitors with a 65 percent gain last week, and is now sitting at 14th place in the crypto market.

Source: Coinmarketcap

AVAX Shows its Competitive Edge

Avalanche is a high-performance blockchain with an estimated rate of 4,500 TPS (Transactions per Second). It currently competes with other high-performance platforms like Solana to become the alternative solution for DeFi protocol developers.

Users can build fast, low-cost and solidity-compatible dApps, besides launching customised private and public blockchains.

Both platforms are challenging Ethereum as leader of the DeFi ecosystem. Several content creators are considering switching to Solana to showcase their NFTs as Ethereum gas fees increasingly present a hurdle for them.

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Blockchain Crypto Exchange Crypto News DeFi Tokens

SUSHI Gains 23% in 24 Hours, Leading the DEX Tokens Surge

SUSHI has gained a mammoth 23 percent in the past 24 hours and is leading the surge following a day of growth for decentralised exchange tokens (DEX). This comes only weeks after a potential exploit of SushiSwap’s (SUSHI) token fundraising platform was foiled by white hat hackers.

In the same period, other DEX tokens PancakeSwap (CAKE) and THORChain (RUNE) gained 2.5 percent and 13 percent respectively. Market cap leader UniSwap also gained 6.23 percent against the US dollar.

DEX token performance on September 16. Source: Messari

SushiSwap, a DApp, has become one of the most popular distributed ledger technologies that allow for the easy transfer and swapping of crypto assets. The exchange is a user-orientated platform in which users provide liquidity in exchange for rewards.

Its native token, SUSHI, is a governance token that enables the community to vote for platform proposals and can be farmed through the yield farming program. Holders of SUSHI, funded by Chef Nomi, an anonymous group, receive a portion of SushiSwap’s trading fees.

SushiSwap Leads the Pack

SushiSwap as a DEX platform has recently branched out to more blockchains than its peers. This has been generating more fees for users and thereby raising the prospect of holding SUSHI tokens.

SUSHI has gained in popularity since it was announced it will be deploying on Arbitrum, a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum-powered decentralised applications (DApps). The company also recently announced that stakers had locked in US$30 million worth of SUSHI tokens into Arbitrum’s smart contracts.

The SUSHI ecosystem is showing healthy growth signs as it attempts to scale its DEX solutions across various layer-1 and layer-2 chains. SushiSwap has also unveiled its upcoming non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, Shoyu.

SUSHI Price Outlook

Following all its announcements, SUSHI has beaten its DEX rivals in terms of interim returns with profits in the past seven days at over 45 percent compared to UniSwap’s 16.93 percent.

However, the token is behind in its year-to-date gains, sitting at 370 percent compared to UniSwap’s 474 percent gain. PancakeSwap’s CAKE has surpassed all its DEX competitors by showing a 3,330 percent return.

The future for SushiSwap looks positive as it currently sits at the fourth-highest DEX market cap. The protocol that started out as a decentralised exchange is growing into something much more than that.

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Crypto News DeFi Hackers Tokens

ZABU Token Tanks 99% After $3.2 Million DeFi Hack

Zabu Finance, a DeFi project running on the Avalanche blockchain, has been exploited for around US$3.2 million worth of its native token, Zabu – plunging its price within minutes to zero.

First DeFi Hack on the Avalanche Blockchain

In what was the first exploit on the Avalanche blockchain, the attacker drained the funds from the SPORE pool, exploiting the “Transfer Tax” mechanism to mint tokens and subsequently plunging its value to zero. The SPORE pool contained 402,9 Wrapped Ether (WETH), 23,157 Wrapped AVAX (WAVAX), 21,501 Pangolen (PNG), 106,848 Avaware (AVE), 361,267 Tether (USDT), and 23,958 JOE.

The attacker found a bug in the contract used by yield farms to distribute rewards. According to security firm PeckShield, the bug has “happened many times before”.

Yet the Zabu Finance team tried to calm down its community, outlining it wasn’t behind the attack and burned all team tokens. The protocol burned the remaining 93.21 million Zabu tokens – around US$360,000 worth.

Another Day, Another DeFi Hack

Zabu Finance is the latest protocol to be hacked, adding to a list of hacked projects this year. A similar case involving Popsicle Finance occurred on August 7 when an attacker manage to drain 85 percent of the deposit pools by taking advantage of a bug found on the smart contracts.

Just a few days later, an unknown attacker managed to drain US$600 million from cross-chain protocol Poly Network. While not a DeFi hack per se, as the attacker turned out to be a white hat hacker (an ethical hacker), it was by far the biggest amount stolen in DeFi history.

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Australia Crypto News Real Estate Tokens

HeroX Announces the Tokenisation of the First Property in Australia

House price affordability remains a perennial issue in Australia without an obvious solution. One innovative property development company, HeroX, appears to offer a partial solution at least as it seeks to disrupt the global real estate market with the tokenisation of the first property in Australia.

Artist’s impression of one of four luxury townhouses in HeroX Templestowe Park, Victoria

Tokenisation in Real Estate an Inevitability

As we shift from an industrial to a digital-led economy, tokenisation of real world assets appears to be all but inevitable, particularly for those paying attention.

Basically, I have for a long time been talking about [how] we can tokenise everything conceptually. What does this all mean? It basically means the breakthrough has been made to attach intellectual property, or physical assets, or digital assets, to a blockchain in a method that is transferable, instantaneously, to anybody, and storable, and proven in its store.

Raoul Pal, Real Vision CEO

The tokenisation of real estate is just the latest example of a trend that includes art, fine wine, whisky, collectible cards, collectible cars or pretty much anything that is both valuable and scarce.


Property tokens are digital representations of properties and their financial interests, such as their capital growth and yield. They are supported using distributed ledger technology and smart contracts.

HeroX

The company claims that tokenisation (or fractionalisation) lowers the barriers to entry for investment by enabling access to a wider pool of investors. The relative inaccessibility of real estate as an asset class is but one of the reasons many Aussie millennials prefer crypto over real estate. If you’re looking for proof, consider August’s Core Logic Home Value Index, which showed that Australia’s house price index grew by 16.1 percent over the past 12 months, the fastest growth in national housing values since February 2004.

Additional benefits of tokenisation include complete transparency and liquidity. This has the potential to negate the obvious downsides of investing in real estate – namely that you need a lot of capital (ie, highly concentrated), and further, that it is an illiquid asset with high transactional costs.

It will be worth watching to see how traditional lenders respond to tokenisation. For now, it looks unlikely that you will be able to borrow against your token. This is arguably one of the disadvantages of tokenised real estate – you aren’t likely to be able to access cheap and freely available credit.

Notwithstanding, the possibility to diversify one’s investments in a thriving asset class within a liquid market will undoubtedly be attractive to first-time and seasoned investors alike.

HeroX Launches First Tokenised Property in Australia


To get the ball rolling, there are four simple steps to becoming an investor within HeroX’s new luxury development:

  • 1) Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks are performed for every potential investor to confirm the identity of investors and ensure they comply with the requirements of Australia’s regulations.
  • 2) Invest – buy one of the 20 tokens available.
  • 3) Get paid, every month, your share of the rental yield.
  • 4) Trade – leveraging HeroX’s secondary market to trade your tokens.

To learn more about HeroX and how to get involved, visit its website for further details.

Crypto and Real Estate Intersect

Tokenisation is only one example of how the worlds of crypto and real estate are beginning to collide.

Some companies have started accepting bitcoin as payment for rent and increasingly, owners around the world are accepting bitcoin for the sale of their properties. Even within finance markets we’ve seen some major shifts as one company in the US is now allowing for bitcoin-backed refinance loans.