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.
Hey guys, I am writing this thread about a #scam from Solgame NFT Team… They shut down their website, they had deleted the Discord and now they are running far from customers that minted on their website. So far I got names and downloaded the website archive. x/6#solgamenft
So far I know the name of the Developer of the project he is Matthew. You can find his name in the video of Tom Choi. Here's a picture of him and the website from the archive. We really need help to find them so they can explain why..
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.
Tron founder Justin Sun has left his CEO position at the Tron Foundation to get involved in politics. To be more specific, he’s joining the Grenadian Government to serve as Ambassador.
📢@justinsuntron's Open Letter on #TRON's decentralization and Justin's appointment as the Ambassador.
✅The #TRON Foundation has settled to dissolve itself on July 25, 2021 ✅Justin Sun has accepted the appointment as Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Grenada to the @wtohttps://t.co/UbBMgrRkMh
While Sun has left his position as CEO at Tron, he will remain involved with its community now that the Tron network has been officially decentralised.
On July 25, the Tron Foundation settled to dissolve itself, with the three super nodes associated with Sun having been retired from the network. This leaves the 27 Super Representatives (block producers) in charge of the network, which the community will have to choose by next year.
Now Sun is seeking to expand blockchain adoption by governments starting with Grenada, as he obviously thinks the Caribbean island nation is a good starting point.
I have accepted the invitation and appointment of the Grenadian Gov. to officially serve as the Ambassador, Permanent Representative of #Grenada to the World Trade Organization in #Geneva. I will be working in full capacity to represent Grenada’s national interests, to the @WTOhttps://t.co/9Ke37rD7KQ
The TRX currency didn’t react so well after the event, however. The token was down -2.72 percent on the news, and -25.93 in the last month, according to data from Messari. Despite the negative numbers, Sun believes the impact of the Tron community will be positive in the long run, boosting TRX to new heights.
This is not the first time Tron has been in hot water. Previously, Sun was caught shilling the TRX token, trying to get a popular YouTuber and influencer to promote the crypto on his social channels.
Crypto Community in Doubt
The crypto community had a mixed reaction to the news, with some wondering what will happen to the Tron network and others signalling it as “absurd”.
This picture perfectly describes the absurdity of it all
Yearn Finance (YFI) proved to be one of the best performers in the crypto market last week, rallying almost 50 percent to hit a fortnightly high above US$31,700 at the time of writing.
The surge coincided with a revelation by Yearn that it has been buying back its YFI token in bulk since early last month in response to a community vote to improve its tokenomics. The decentralised asset management platform purchased 282.40 YFI at an average price of US$26,651 per token, totalling over US$7.5 million.
Yearn Intends to Buy Back Even More Tokens
Yearn also claims to have more than US$45 million in its Treasury and has recorded “stronger than ever” earnings. As a result, it said it would buy back even more YFI tokens in future.
Now that the Treasury has more than $45 million saved up and with earnings stronger than ever, expect much more aggressive buybacks. What will you do anon?
Yearn reportedly makes about US$100 million per year alone in fees collected from Vaults, its smart savings account service that maximises the value accrual of deposited digital assets. It also has enough liquidity to sustain its token buyback strategy going forward.
YFI Leaves ETH and SOL in the Shade
Right now, Yearn’s primary aim is to recover recent losses and last week’s rally left some of the major altcoins in the shadows. To cite two examples, ETH dropped 3.38 percent with SOL sitting at -1.57 percent in the same period YFI shot up 46 percent.
YFI price action, December 15-17. Source: TradingView / AMBCrypto
Back in February this year, Fantom FTM coin pumped more than 73 percent in a single day on the back of its collaboration with Yearn Finance. Perhaps YFI has once again found the magic touch.
The REI Network, formerly GXChain, has recently put its growth fund in place, making 150,000,000 $REI available for the ecosystem. After the release of the news, the GXC token spiked over 100 per cent.
GXC Price Pump
On December 16, the GXChain released plans for its new growth fund to help build the ecosystem. Shortly after the news broke the token shot up from US$1.2 to $2.86 at its highest, a near 140 percent gain. At the time of writing the price had settled to $2.02.
GXC price. Source: Coinmarketcap
GXC Changes to REI Network
GXChain 2.0 is not only a technological upgrade but also a new migration of public chains. The proposal released by GXChain Official shows that it has restructured from the underlying architecture to a brand-new blockchain structure, based on lighter code construction, compatible with EVM and Ethereum RPC. GXChain 2.0 also stated that it will be renamed REI Network.
GXC is in the process of converting the native tokens of the mainnet from GXC to REI; the 1:10 split rule will be followed, in order that the maximum supply of REI will reach 1 billion.
REIcosystem Grants will be gradually released with the development of the ecology, and will not be directly circulated in the market for a fixed period and will not cause an increase in market circulation in the short term, so as not to exert undue pressure on the price of the token.
The new token distribution
The team provides all the 25 million unlocked tokens as Ecology Grants, of which 5 million is used for node rewards, 5 million for marketing, and 15 million to incentivise developers. This will be done by decreasing the team’s token holdings from 25 percent to 0 percent.
By doing this the team hopes to rebuild the ecosystem by incentivising ecological contributors and developers in the REI Network with rewards, investment in high-quality projects, and user rewards for major contributors to the ecology.
Adidas Originals has today launched its non-fungible token collection, titled Into The Metaverse, in doing so becoming the last of the big three sports footwear brands to join the NFT fray.
The Into The Metaverse digital asset will serve as an access token, promising holders exclusive first dibs on future merchandise, physical and digital product and services, rewards within its newly attained land plot in The Sandbox, and more.
How to Get Your Adidas NFT
The collection’s sale starts via the company’s official website on Friday, December 17 at a price of 0.2 ETH, about US$791 at the time of writing.
Early access takes place before public sale, with 20,000 tokens reserved for holders of: Adidas Originals POAP (Proof Of Attendance Protocol), gMoney POAPs, BAYC/MAYC NFTs, and all Pixel Vault NFTs.
A minimum of 9,620 Adidas NFTs are reserved for general sale, which will remain open until all NFTs are sold. Adidas and partners retain 380 NFTs with a portion allocated towards future events.
Earlier this month, Adidas announced it would be collaborating with Bored Ape creators and Yuga Labs to enter the metaverse, making a show of good faith by purchasing a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT for 46 ETH, or US$156,000, at the time.
Then this week, Nike announced it had acquired RTFKT Studios, a digital art studio focusing on sneaker-themed NFTs and collectibles on the Ethereum blockchain, thus heralding its own first footfall in the metaverse.
In July, Japanese multinational sports apparel giant Asics stole a march on both Nike and Adidas, its two fiercest competitors in the footwear space, by launching its Sunrise Red NFT collection.
As the NFT boom continues, Formula One (F1) has cemented itself in the race to the blockchain as it launched its own non-fungible token (NFT) fantasy game, “DeltaTime”. F1 DeltaTime is built atop Ethereum and is based around the collection and trading of unique Formula One cars, drivers and components.
Get Your REVVs Up
The latest news from the F1 DeltaTime world is that it has now also introduced NFT staking. Consisting of two main play experiences, Collection and Competitive Racing Games, FI DeltaTime – with its native token REVV – utilises the Ethereum blockchain and runs off the ERC-20 standard. NFTs are available for purchase on OpenSea for relatively reasonable prices.
However, NFTs of some of the more famous characters in the racing world such as leading F1 driver Lewis Hamilton will run to about 8.99 ETH (approximately US$36,400). NFTs can also be purchased using the REVV token.
Lewis Hamilton NFT available for a cool US$36,400. Source: OpenSea
The Collectibles Game centres on trading rare virtual items including Cars, Drivers, Components and Trinkets, which adds gamification to the collection of NFTs, adding layers such as achievements and leaderboards.
Race Your Own NFT Car
Like traditional racing games, the “Racing Game” allows players to take their collectibles – cars, drivers trinkets and components – and manage them into a race-ready Grand Prix entrant. The game is presented to the player or the owner of the NFT as a 2.5D perspective overlooking a selected track and allowing players in command of their racing vehicle to control the car’s acceleration and braking.
For a handy tutorial on how to start racing, watch this YouTube video:
Stake Your Car for Rewards
Ending the year on a high note, F1 DeltaTime has announced a new pool of 1.5 million REVV available to be earned by players via staking. The game has also announced the SHRD token, a new P2E (play-to-earn) token now earnable in F1 Delta Time. Staking takes place for 28 days from December 9.
Staking in this instance refers to owners sending their car NFTs to a staking smart contract for a given period, where they will passively earn REVV from the token pool. While in staking, the NFT cannot be used in any of the gameplay modes.
Once staked, the NFTs cannot be unstaked or restaked for a 24-hour cooling off period. Earning is determined based on every 24-hour period a car remains staked. Owners can claim their staking rewards after the entire staking period has ended.
Get ready to Stake!🔥 Staking goes live tomorrow on: ➡️➡️➡️9th December at 8am UTC! ⬅️⬅️⬅️
There are no signs of a slowdown as the world of NFTs continues to throw up innovative and interesting projects, among which fantasy NFTs games remain one of the most popular.
Amid the rise of blockchain-based fantasy NFT games and fantasy football games, Sorare has been one of the biggest on the front, raising US$680 million in a historic Series B funding round in an effort to expand its game.
To learn more about the most interesting NFT projects set to launch, from P2E to metaverse, Crypto News Australia has published a helpful guide.
Crypto exchange AscendEX has lost over US$77 million worth of several high-profile cryptocurrencies, including Ether (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB) and various Polygon tokens, in a breach of its hot wallet.
Three Blockchains Affected
On December 11, AscendEX tweeted about the incident, reporting that it had detected a “number of ERC-20, BSC, and Polygon tokens transferred from our hot wallet”. More than US$77 million worth of various tokens across three blockchains was drained by the hacker(s).
22:00 UTC 12/11, We have detected a number of ERC-20, BSC, and Polygon tokens transferred from our hot wallet. Cold Wallet is NOT affected. Investigation underway. If any user’s funds are affected by the incident, they will be covered completely by AscendEX.
The amount stolen was known after security firm PeckShield conducted research on the incident. According to the firm’s experts, the estimated losses were: US$60 million on Ethereum, $9.2 million on Binance Chain, and $8.5 million on Polygon. Stolen tokens included several stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), along with DeFi tokens including Compound (COMP), Aave (AAVE), and the popular memecoin Shiba Inu (SHIB).
We'll continue providing updates to users on resuming deposits and withdrawals. Any impacted users will have their funds 100% covered by @AscendEX_Global .
The event comes shortly after Crypto News Australiareported the US$200 million hack on centralised US crypto exchange BitMart, which suffered one of the biggest security breaches in crypto history on December 4.
Another exchange to have suffered a major security breach is Hong Kong-based platform Bilaxy, which lost US$450 million worth of several ERC-20 tokens in an August incident.
When payment solutions company MoonPay announced it was allowing its users to buy NEAR tokens worldwide, the price of NEAR Protocol skyrocketed 28 percent in 24 hours, with trading volume up more than 125 percent in the same period. Since then, the NEAR token has recorded an overall increase of 48 percent in a week.
The future is NEAR! 🔮$NEAR by @NEARProtocol is now available for purchase via MoonPay worldwide! 🌎
NEAR is a development platform built on a sharded, proof-of-stake, layer-one blockchain that offers drastically lower transaction fees while maintaining high throughputs. The simple explanation for NEAR’s sudden boost is that MoonPay has a crypto trading app with around five million users.
By announcing its support for NEAR, MoonPay made the pool of potential investors that much deeper, which also explains NEAR’s increased trading volume. NEAR Protocol is further seeking to facilitate a shift to Web 3.0. With a daily transaction rate of 300,000 – just a fraction of its almost limitless capability – developers see a need for NEAR to transition to a more efficient system called Nightshade.
Phase one of the transition is scheduled to begin in early 2022, with phase two set to be implemented by the end of next year.
A String of Recent Announcements
In the first week of December, NEAR Foundation and WOO Network announced the completion of a US$5 million token swap to create a strategic partnership between ecosystems.
4. 🤝WOO + NEAR = Scalable infrastructure + smart liquidity
WOO Network has partnered with @NEARProtocol with a $5M token swap, with WOO Network becoming a key builder in the NEAR ecosystemhttps://t.co/BFx07JO3rw
Last month, Ardana – Cardano’s growing stablecoin hub – also announced a strategic partnership with Near Protocol. It will allow for asset transfer between the two protocols in which Ardana will provide the bridging infrastructure:
After US Congressman Brad Sherman mockingly mentioned “Mongoose Coin” at a crypto hearing, it prompted a few crypto degens to launch a memecoin by the same name. Since its inception on December 8, the coin has shot up 320,000 percent and Sherman’s reference to the fictional token has spurred several others to pop up.
California Democrat Sherman has become an overnight inspiration for token creators after denigrating the competitive world of cryptos. During a House Financial Services Committee hearing on crypto, the Congressman referenced a story of the old woman who swallows bigger and bigger animals to catch the previously swallowed animal, adding that “the number one threat to cryptocurrency is crypto”.
Sherman illustrated the point by saying that Bitcoin may be unseated by Ether, which in turn could be displaced by Doge, only to also be replaced by Hamster Coin and the Cobra Coin. He then added, by way of capping the rhetorical joke, “what could Mongoose Coin do to crypto coin?”
May this be a warning to all who dare to joke about crypto? Shortly after Sherman’s remarks, a token called Mongoose Coin ($MONG) was created and within just a few hours its market cap had ballooned to US$2 million, now up a massive 320,000 percent since launch.
$MONG up 320,000 percent. Source: Dexscreener
Since the December 8 hearing, Sherman-inspired coins have been created on the Polygon, Avalanche and Binance Smart Chain networks, each with differing token supplies, which have performed accordingly. Mongoose Coin, for example, had a listed market cap of US$9 million, while Mongoose Coin DAO has a valuation of US$914,000. Sherman Coin is at US$148,000, according to Dextools.
After Sherman’s remarks, Hamster Coin, which existed prior to the hearing, also spun its wheel off the chart.
Hamster Coin price chart. Source: Coinmarketcap
Although Sherman’s comments made for some light entertainment, his statements were jumbled and he just didn’t stick the landing. The point he was trying to make was, however, not entirely wrong. In the case of fiat money, the US dollar may be the standard global currency but national currencies of other nations will continue to hold values based on the very fact that they exist. As opposed to the real world, in crypto we see the cycle repeated time and time again – altcoins rise, flop, become worthless, and simply disappear.
Regulators Unsure How to Handle Cryptos
Right now, the US Senate House Committee on Financial Services is a source of entertaining meme-worthy moments but it remains one of the leading information disseminators regarding cryptos. In October, US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Gary Gensler confirmed that the regulator had no intention of banning digital currencies, instead saying that any such ban “would be up to Congress”.
However, a month earlier the SEC announced it was investigating Uniswap Labs, parent company of Uniswap, the world’s largest decentralised exchange. Apparently, the SEC has DeFi insights and aims to bring forth some regulation.
After its valuation shot up earlier this year, Reddit intends to expand its Community Points beta, allowing any subreddit to request the ability to create its own token. Reddit released a waitlist for subreddits who wish to do so and has provided additional information regarding its Community Points on its website.
Subreddits Can Have Own Points, Name, Symbol and Token
Reddit Community Points are handed out as rewards for active users in the community and can be given based on the number of upvotes a member receives within a subreddit, whether for a post they had made themselves or a post made on somebody else’s. The expanded Community Points programs will allow each subreddit to have its own Community Points, with a custom name, symbol and token.
According to Reddit, Community Points are about building a reputation. “But it's not limited to Reddit either. Because your Points are on the blockchain, you can take your reputation anywhere you want on the Internet,” the company says on its page. https://t.co/Z7bPqMqTDD
Points can have value too and may be sold for other cryptos. The crypto points have value within each respective community/subreddit and can be used to purchase features or engage in community governance. Additionally, the points can also potentially be swapped for other cryptos or tokens at exchanges, or used for external purposes.
Tokens Retain Community Ownership
Reddit adds: “Community Points are the first step towards a different future for online communities … these tokens live on the blockchain, which means they are truly owned by the community. Over time, your community will benefit from even greater control and independence -on and off of Reddit.”
Currently, Community Points run on a test net version of Ethereum, but Reddit is working with Ethereum layer two scaling solution Arbitrum to see if it can run a version of that instead. As it stands, Reddit offers Community Points in the r/Cryptocurrency subreddit, called Moons, and in the r/Fortnite subreddit, called Bricks.
Reddit adds that the goal of introducing tokens to Reddit is that they can be used to incentivise good behaviour or content creation without a specific community. Community Points can also potentially be used in the future to run a community itself – a theme that some users are not entirely happy with.
I’ll get to the point: there are now better ways to get feedback, build community, and to have fun with players as a dev without ever touching Reddit. I don’t foresee many game devs subjecting themselves to the old ways much longer.
The news of tokens to additional subreddits comes during a welcome time as Reddit busies itself in the crypto world. In October, Reddit fuelled speculation it was getting into the non-fungible token (NFT) craze. A new job posting for a senior back-end engineer even had many wondering whether the social media giant might be building its very own NFT platform.
