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Lipika Deka

29 Moonbird NFTs Worth $1.5M Succumbs To A Phishing Attack

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A Moonbirds owner lost 29 of these Ethereum-based NFTs in what appeared to be a phishing hack. As shared by Cirrus via tweet, the stolen nonfungible tokens [NFTs] were valued at nearly $1.5 million and occurred due to clicking on a bad link provided by the attacker.

For those unfamiliar, Moonbirds is an Ethereum NFT collection comprising over 10,000 profile pictures. Holders gain access to the ‘PROOF community’, and can “nest” their NFT owls for future benefits.

Twitter user and NFT enthusiast Andeh, posted that the P2P transaction was used by the alleged scammer. In the thread, he claimed to have made contact with the victim and has been able to track down the bad actor’s address and name.

Andeh also said that the attacker is a seasoned criminal and has been involved in many scams in the past.

While the official Moonbird Twitter handle is yet to respond, it’s still unclear how many victims were affected by the theft.

The latest incident comes after NFT creator Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, had his Twitter account compromised in a phishing attack.

As reported by TronWeekly, the scam earned the attacker $438K in cryptocurrency and NFTs from the hacked Beeple account.

What are Moonbirds Nfts?

Moonbirds NFTs come with a pixelated owl character with randomized traits and features. In a nutshell, it’s similar to the famous Bored Apes and many, many other profile picture projects on the market right now.

Also like the Bored Apes, Moonbird holders have intellectual property rights and can use their owned image to create products, services, merchandise, and more. They also have access to a private community called the PROOF Collective.

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The PROOF Collective is an NFT-based membership club created by Kevin Rose, who is a tech founder.

In December 2021, PROOF released the 1,000 access pass NFTs via a Dutch Auction format, starting at just 5 ETH. The price of these quickly accelerated since then. At press time, MOONBIRD’s value is trading at $47k, data from CoinGecko showed.

Besides that PROOF plans to host an NFT conference in 2023, as well as release additional NFTs in the future.

Uniswap’s Cumulative Trading Volume Crosses $1T

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Decentralized exchange [DEX] Uniswap scored a new milestone passing $1 trillion in total trading volume as per the announcement posted on their official Twitter handle on May 24.

In a series of tweets that began saying, “It’s been one hell of a ride”, the protocol shared key points that helped towards reaching its $1 trillion mark.

Since its inception in 2018, the DEX claimed that it has onboarded millions of users to the world of DeFi, introduced fair, permissionless trading, and lowered the barrier to liquidity provision.

This month, the DEX’s number of cumulative addresses hit around 3.9 million this month after just over three years, data from Uniswap Labs revealed.

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The Uniswap Labs team is a major contributor to the Protocol that focuses on building a suite of products to support the UNI ecosystem. The trading platform currently runs on Ethereum and layer-2 scaling solutions Polygon, Optimism, and Arbitrum.

Around mid-April,  the creator behind the leading decentralized exchange protocol unveiled its own venture division to further its web3 ambitions. But the size of Ventures’ fund is been not made public yet.

Earlier this month, the team behind the project also revealed that the DEX’s v3 will be deployed to two EVM-compatible chains in Gnosis Chain and Polkadot-based para-chain Moonbeam Network, following successful governance proposals.

Uniswap leading the pack except for TVL and Price

With respect to trade volume, Uniswap is at the top position way ahead of its competitors in the DEX market. According to CoinGecko Data, the protocol’s V3 topped $938 million worth of volume in the past 24 hours, representing 33% of the total market share.

However in terms of Total Value Locked [TVL] ranking it fell to seventh place at $5.9 billion while PancakeSwap ranks seventh with $4.27 billion worth of TVL. MakerDAO [MKR] topped the charts sitting at $9.82 billion in TVL and Curve [CRV] in the second place at $9.16 billion.

On the price front too, the performance of its native token UNI has been disappointing. UNI went on a downward spiral depreciating by 87% from its previous all-time high of $44.9 back in early May 2021, to now a little above $5.

Coinbase breaks into the Fortune 500 Club; CEO-“Just getting started!”

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Coinbase charted history as the first crypto firm to make it into the coveted Fortune 500, ranking 437th on the list of the biggest U.S. companies. Elated over the news, CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted “Just getting started!” and said there will be many crypto companies on the list by end of the decade.

The Fortune 500 represents two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product, with revenue totaling $16.1 trillion.

Coinbase had a good run in 2021 and went public through a direct listing in April of the same year, less than a decade after it was founded. Its revenue was $7.8 billion, just over the minimum of $6.4 billion that companies are required to enter the Fortune 500 list.

However, its 2022 journey began on a rough footing as crypto prices plummeted and trading volumes took a hit. It then resorted to diversifying its revenue streams by officially launching its own NFT marketplace in early May, which did not turn out much profitable.

According to Bloomberg, the newly launched platform could garner only about 2,900 unique active users.

Since Coinbase’s business relies heavily on crypto trading, the current downtrend has put a dent in its earnings. Trading volume on its platform in the first quarter was $309 billion, short of the $331.2 billion analysts expected.

The trading platform also failed to live up to analyst expectations for the first quarter, reporting net revenue of $1.16 billion for the first three months ending March 31 and a net loss of $430 million.

Coinbase’s shares declined by 82% since the last ATH

At the time of writing, its stock price [COIN] was trading at around $61, down by 82% since its previous peak at $357 on 9 November 2021.

While Coinbase initially planned to triple the size of the firm going into 2022, its chief operations officer, Emilie Choi, said in a note to employees last week that the company would be scaling back hiring, partly due to prevailing market conditions.

According to its first-quarter earnings report, Coinbase recruited 1,200 people in the first quarter of the year. At present, it has more than 4,900 employees, as per data provided on its website. 

Filecoin Foundation Join Lockheed Martin To Build Blockchain Network In Space

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Filecoin Foundation in association with aerospace corp Lockheed Martin announced to build a blockchain network in space, at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on May 23.

Billed as the Interplanetary File System, or IPFS is an open-source network that stores information that can be shared by users.

Joe Landon, VP of advanced programs development at Lockheed Martin Space, said the goal of the project is to develop a program for deploying the IPFS in space.

“We need to develop the technology to support a long-term presence in space without having to rely entirely on Earth-based communications and data storage,” Landon said. 

According to its website, the Filecoin Foundation is a self-funded organization that facilitates governance of the Filecoin network — a blockchain-based cryptocurrency and digital payment system that builds on top of the IPFS.

Noting that today’s centralized internet model “just doesn’t work in space,” Marta Belcher, president, and chair of the Filecoin Foundation said

“Every time you click, that data has to be retrieved from a particular server in a particular place. That means that if you’re on the moon, there’s going to be a multi-second delay while that data travels from Earth, but with IPFS data isn’t retrieved by where it is, but rather by what it is, so it can be retrieved from whatever’s closest to you, eliminating that delay.”

Lockheed Martin and Filecoin plan to pick a spacecraft platform to host IPFS

In the ensuing months, Lockheed Martin and Filecoin will work to establish a spacecraft platform to host an IPFS payload that will transmit data back and forth between Earth and other spacecraft.

“We are starting out with an exploration phase that will include scoping the technical work required and identifying the right demonstration mission,” said Belcher. “Once we have identified the appropriate mission or missions, we’ll have a longer-term timeline.”

In the beginning, the initial payload demonstration is planned for low Earth orbit. 

Further, the announcement post claims that IPFS would allow users to back up files and websites by hosting them across numerous nodes. Landon said this project aims to bring the benefits of decentralized storage systems to space. 

eBay teams up with OneOF to release the first-ever “Genesis” NFT collection

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Multinational e-commerce giant eBay unveiled a series of exclusive NFTs in collaboration with OneOf, a green NFT platform for communities across music, sports, and lifestyle.

Dubbed as the “Genesis” NFT Collection, the highlights include 3D and animated interpretations of the iconic athletes featured on Sports Illustrated covers over the years, the first of which features record-breaking Canadian hockey legend, Wayne Gretzky.

As per the press release, the collection comprises thirteen limited-edition digital collectibles such as green, gold, platinum, and diamond tier NFTs. Each NFT whose price starts from $10 features a 3D rendering or animation of Gretzky with an iconic pose on the ice.

Speaking on its first NFT partnership, Dawn Block, VP at eBay stated,

NFTs and blockchain technology are revolutionizing the collectibles space, and are increasingly viewed as an investment opportunity for enthusiasts. Through our partnership with OneOf, eBay is now making coveted NFTs more accessible to a new generation of collectors everywhere. This builds upon our commitment to deliver high-passion, high-value items to the eBay community of buyers and sellers.

Its partner firm OneOf claims to be a “green” NFT platform that uses energy-efficient blockchain technology.

eBay’s 142M users will now have access to high-value collectibles

Through its 142 million buyers and millions of sellers worldwide, the global commerce player can leverage its inventory, maintain an open marketplace, and make high-value collectibles more accessible, with the collaborating partner.

That said, even though the e-commerce firm has a significant presence in the online shopping space, the company will now have its work cut out for it competing with dozens of crypto native NFT marketplaces already out there.

eBay is now among a growing number of entities looking to incorporate NFTs into their platforms. Instagram recently announced that it will start testing NFTs with select creators in the United States.

Additionally, Spotify also revealed last week that it’s testing a new feature that allows artists to promote their NFTs on their profiles.

As for eBay, its obsession with Nft began in February this year when CEO Jamie Iannone told CNBC that it was looking to get into the sector, in an effort to be the go-to marketplace for Gen Z and millennials.

Gafisa, Brazil’s Real Estate Giant Embraces Bitcoin

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Brazil’s real estate stalwart Gafisa has added Bitcoin [BTC] for transactions through a partnership with cryptocurrency gateway provider Foxbit according to a press release. The latest addition is set to cut third-party entities out of the real estate transaction process, thereby reducing costs.

Partner firm Foxbit stated that Bitcoin would reduce the costs of transactions with quick and final settlements while eliminating the risk of fraud and also being a part of the “disruptive technology would open up whole new opportunities for future growth.

As known, Brazil has always been one of the leading countries for the adoption of bitcoin.

In 2022, Chainalysis reported that Brazil was the largest cryptocurrency market in Latin America based on transaction volume, receiving nearly $91 billion worth of cryptocurrencies in the year-long period between July 2020 and June 2021.

Not only does Brazil rank number six in on-chain value transacted in a report by Chainalysis, but Gafisa houses 1 out of every 130 Brazilians, according to its internal data, thus enabling millions of its citizens to have access to the world’s dominant coin.

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Gafisa, Brazil's Real Estate Giant Embraces Bitcoin 4

Guilherme Benevides, CEO of Gafisa stated,

“Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency in market value and, technologically, the most ballast currency in history. It is a currency that is growing in popularity every day, also expanding the possibilities of its use.”

Gafisa CEO says “Bitcoin follows a path of progression”

Benevides continued to explain that BTC follows a path of progression and with the explosion of the digital revolution globally, Gafisa feels digital payments will continue to garner an increasingly high level of presence in emerging economies.

There is a natural tendency to digitize payments,” Benevides explained. “If we stop to think that the Central Bank will launch the digital real in 2022, we can conclude that, in fact, digital is increasingly present in the world.”

Less than a month ago, the Brazilian Senate plenary approved a bill regulating crypto transactions, and then two weeks later the nation’s only stock exchange, B3, laid out plans to launch Bitcoin futures “in the next three to six months,” Chief Financial Officer André Milanez then said in an interview.

China’s BSN Blockchain Ready For Global Expansion Despite ‘Challenges’

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China’s blockchain-based service network a.k.a BSN is eyeing its first major international expansion, according to a CNBC report. CEO Yifan revealed the firm’s plan to launch a project called BSN Spartan Network overseas sometime in August.

The Hong Kong-based firm boasts itself as a “one-stop-shop” for blockchain cloud applications. It aims to bridge different blockchains together to help businesses deploy the technology.

Even though Chinese President Xi Jinping has doubled down on Blockchain technology, elevating it to a national priority, it is strictly against any cryptocurrencies other than Digital Yuan.

Due to this, the Spartan Network will rely on half a dozen public blockchains that do not operate with cryptocurrencies. One of those will be a non-crypto version of the Ethereum blockchain when the project launches in August.

Yifan also confirmed that the Blockchain transactions fee will be paid in U.S. dollars rather than Ethereum’s related cryptocurrency called ether.

“The purpose of this is to drop the cost to use public chains to very minimal so that more traditional IT [information technology] systems and business systems can use public chains as part of their systems. That is why we are working with other major public chain protocols to convince them the mainstream is non-crypto public chains.”

More hurdles for BSN ahead

Being a blockchain firm and not dealing with cryptocurrencies will have its challenges. The CEO admitted that the initial years will be “difficult to push as most people in the blockchain industry only understand crypto.

Not only that, as it is backed by the Chinese government, foreign firms would likely be a bit hesitant to do business with the firm.

But Yifan begged to differ saying, “People will say BSN is from China, it is dangerous. Let me emphasize, BSN Spartan will be open source … we will not access anything from our end.”

“That is why when we a launch in August we will open-source immediately and we are working with a lot of western companies,” he added.

On the other hand, here is some good news for Bitcoiners.

China’s iron hold over Bitcoin miners from running operations in the country seems to be wavering. Data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index [CBECI] showed that activity has picked up again and the nation is now the second-largest Bitcoin miner, after the US.

CoinSwitch’s CEO urges Indian Gov to develop a set of laws to bring ‘peace and certainty’

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CoinSwitch CEO Ashish Singhal at a Davos Meet called for regulatory clarity in order to protect investors’ interests and uplift the crypto sector which has been badly beaten down. The former Amazon engineer turned co-founder of one of India’s largest crypto trading platforms stated,

“Users don’t know what will happen with their holdings is the government going to ban, not ban, how is it going to be regulated.” “Regulations will bring peace, more certainty,” he added

CoinSwitch, which is valued at $1.9 billion, boasts of having more than 18 million users. The firm, based in India’s main tech hub of Bengaluru, is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, and Coinbase Ventures.

In India, crypto exchanges have faced numerous difficulties since the stiff tax went into effect, last month. Owing to the hawkish stance of the Reserve bank, many banks have cut ties with trading platforms.

Due to this, CoinSwitch and many others were forced to disable rupee deposits sending alarms among investors.

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In April, the US-based largest crypto exchange Coinbase also had to pause the use of a state-backed inter-bank fund transfer service shortly after its launch.

Later in May, its CEO Brian Armstrong blamed the RBI for halting trading operations and had to postpone its hiring process.

CoinSwitch Ashish Singhal- “A lot more needed to be done.”

Speaking at the World Economic Forum [WEF] Singhal said, “While moves on taxation and certain advertising regulation had brought some relief, a lot more needed to be done,” adding, “India should develop a set of laws.”

The exec in his speech suggested that these should be norms for identity verification and transferring crypto assets, while for exchanges, the authorities should take necessary steps to track transactions and report them to any authority as required.

While India’s central bank continued to maintain its stiff stance saying it has”serious concerns” around private cryptocurrencies, the nation’s Prime Minister on the other hand Narendra Modi said such “emerging technologies should be used to empower democracy, not undermine it.”

But the federal government’s move to tax income from crypto assets has been seen by the industry as a sign of acceptance by New Delhi.

A Solana-Based Fitness App Aims To Conquer The GameFi World

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A Solana-based Move-To-Earn app dubbed STEPN has gained significant traction since its inception back in December 2021. The app which allows users to walk and run to earn coins has seen its native token GMT’s market cap reach nearly $860 million, as of May 22.

According to the co-founder Jerry Huang, the app currently attracts around two to three million users worldwide every month.

Initially, the project was self-funded before the founders decided to meet 100 investors and secured a $5 million seed round from Sequoia Capital and others in November.

“We didn’t have a product at the time, and many investors couldn’t understand what we were doing. Sequoia did. The process of addressing investor questions also helped us refine the product to where it was later,” said Huang.

According to a TechCrunch report, it’s raking $3-5 million in net profit from trading fees per day, and earning up to $100 million every month. In April, it closed another round of strategic investment from Binance.

How does it aim to compete with other GameFi apps?

Some gaming veterans feel that the gameplay of most existing GameFi apps is “easy and mindless.” Axie Infinity, for instance, features cute blob-like creatures that fight in simple battles. As the GameFi sector expands, new players pledge to bring quality back to the industry.

Huang disagrees. “A lot of the triple-A games overemphasize aesthetics and big budgets, but they aren’t really that innovative when it comes to gameplay, whereas some simple-looking games like Plants vs. Zombies come with brilliant gameplay that makes them last.”

Huang also argued STEPN’s fitness component makes it fundamentally different from Axie Infinity.

Is the app sustainable in the long term?

Critics question the financial sustainability of play-to-earn and have even drawn comparisons of play-to-earn apps to pyramid schemes.

STEPN said it is working on a two-fold solution to sustainability-one is a price stabilization mechanism and the other is price manipulation.

“I think people are paying too much attention to the [sustainability] issue,” the founder continued. “ROI might slow over time, but all games have life cycles. You also need to look at what value an app creates.”

Bitcoin Pizza Day! Two Pizzas Bought For 10K BTC On May 22, 2010

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It’s Pizza Time! Today marks the world’s first Bitcoin trade- 2 Large Papa John’s pizzas bought for 10,000 BTC, exactly 12 years ago. On May 22, 2010, a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz from Florida, US never knew that his craving for pizza would go down in history.

What’s even more interesting is that he paid 10,000 BTC, which today is worth more than $80 million, for the two pizzas.

The road, however, wasn’t easy.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, Hanyecz had to wait for a while for his order. In fact, Hanyecz first posted on the Bitcoin.org forums on May 18, saying,

“I’ll pay 10,000 BTC for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some leftover for the next day. I like having leftover pizza to nibble on later … If you’re interested please let me know and we can work out a deal.”

A British man Jeremy Sturdivant a.k.a Jercos took up Hanyecz’s offer and bought the two pizzas for him in exchange for the 10,000 Bitcoins.

In 2018, Hanyecz again became the first person to buy a pizza over the Lightning Network, though he paid a mere 0.00649 BTC at the time.

Jercos ultimately sold his Bitcoins

As the Bitcoin Pizza Day holiday grew, Jeremy “Jercos” Sturdivant again grabbed the limelight. He’d give his only interview to a website called “Bitcoin Who’s Who” in 2015, five years after the historic trade.

At that time, Sturdivant had said, “a currency is meant to be spent,” noting that the 10,000 BTC he had received “made it back into the economy quickly” by the time they were worth about $400 in total.

“Naturally there will always be people hoarding coins, trying to get rich, and quite a few people did get quite rich, but they wouldn’t have got that way without economic growth allowing it,” he said, before adding that Bitcoin was meant to be more similar to a PayPal or Stripe.

Sturdivant also spewed some other notable details and said that the transaction was finalized over IRC chats. Jercos was 19 at the time of the transaction.