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NFTs Are Heating Up Again: Trading Volumes Reach Three-Month High

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WU Blockchain reported today that the NFTs market saw a significant increase in trading volume yesterday, reaching a three-month high with a single-day total of over 32,000 Ethereum (ETH). 

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Source: NFTGo

On January 5th, the market capitalization of the NFT market reached a three-month high of approximately 10.23 million ETH. The previous high was seen on December 10th, when the market cap was about 9.82 million ETH. 

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Source: NFTGo

The data is gathered from an NFT marketplace or analytics platform, NFTGo. Additionally, OpenSea, a major marketplace for NFTs, also experienced a two-month peak in ETH-denominated trading volume on the same day. 

However, NFTGo’s Barometer is currently at 31/100, indicating that NFT market sentiments are cool. In the last 24 hours, there have been 19,288 buyers and 19,288 Sellers.

NFTs Sales Volume in 2022 Nearly Matches 2021 Peak

According to data from DappRadar, the volume of NFT sales in 2022 almost reached the peak seen in 2021, despite declining sales and falling prices in recent months. The market generated approximately $24.7 billion in organic trading volume across blockchain platforms and marketplaces in 2022, a slight decrease from the $25.1 billion recorded in 2021. 

However, DappRadar observed a significant increase in the number of NFTs traded last year, with approximately 101 million NFT trades recorded in 2022, compared to about 58.6 million in 2021. It suggests that a larger number of NFTs were traded at lower values due to the decrease in crypto and NFT prices.

The crypto market saw significant value loss in 2022, with losses intensifying due to the collapse of Terra’s LUNA and UST and the downfall of the crypto exchange FTX. This “crypto winter” led to a decline in crypto prices and had a similar effect on the NFT market. 

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Source: OpenSea

Sales of NFTs saw a boost in January as the market carried over momentum from 2021, with top marketplace OpenSea recording a record month with $5 billion in trading volume. However, trading volume decreased in the following months before a surge in late April due to the launch of NFT land plots for the metaverse game Otherside by Yuga Labs. You can also check out other NFT market moves by going to BuyNFT.

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Source: OpenSea

It drove OpenSea to a single-day record for trading volume, but the market did not maintain this momentum and saw a drop in monthly volume from nearly $3.3 billion in May to just over $1 billion in June. Since then, the market has not surpassed the $1 billion mark.

Related Reading | Stringent Licensing Of Cryptocurrency Firms Immediate Necessity :French Central Bank Governor

Solana’s Magic Eden Blunder; Not NFT But Lewd Images Flashes

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Solana’s leading cross-chain NFT platform Magic Eden announced on Twitter that one of the third-party picture service providers had been compromised, causing certain questionable images to be displayed in place of users’ NFTs.

The announcement came after community members complained of witnessing images and stills from the TV series “The Big Bang Theory,” as well as risqué content on the platform over the past day instead of the NFTs they tried to view.

According to reports, the Solana NFT giant attempted to fix the issue within an hour. Still, some of the racy images remained.

Magic Eden’s team released a statement assuring that users’ NFTs were not affected and asked to refresh their web browsers.

“Your NFTs are safe and Magic Eden has not been hacked. Make sure you do a hard refresh on your browser to fix it”.

According to a spokesman, Magic Eden does not think that it was deliberately targeted by the third-party vendor attack, which the NFT marketplace believes also affected other websites. Due to security concerns, it would not reveal the name of the third-party vendor.

Solana NFT Marketplace Went Multi-Chain In 2022

One NFT enthusiast drew attention to hosting on-chain metadata on centralized servers and said preference should be for decentralized hosting,”….imagine u pay 100E for art and it gets changed to porn”, he quipped.

There have been instances in the past where actual NFT artwork was housed on centralized web servers, which can lead to issues in the event that a server goes down.

However, in the latest case, it seems that the NFTs themselves were not harmed and that only the Magic Eden website itself was disrupted as a result of an attack on an outside service provider.

That said, the NFT platform went multi-chain by integrating Ethereum-based NFTs into its previously Solana-only platform last year.

The marketplace said it aims to provide “go-to-market” benefits for Ethereum NFT creators as it does for its Solana users, including its popular minting toolkit, whitelisting tools, and marketing support.

Following the FTX collapse, the Solana ecosystem has witnessed the departure of two leading NFT projects. But, Austin Federa, head of strategy and communications at the Solana Foundation recently said the network has seen an increase in on-chain activity despite the catastrophic event.

BarrelDAO Drops Limited-Edition Solana Beer Featuring Popular NFTs

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Solana now boasts its own limited edition beer inspired by some of its most popular nft projects like  DeGods, Degenerate Ape Academy, Okay Bears, Solana Monkey Business, Thugbirdz, Cets on Creck, Catalina Whale Mixer, and John Lê’s “The First Edition.”

Although the makers aren’t from the Solana Foundation or its core network contributors, Solana Labs, the beer is the product of barrelDAO, a brewery, and distillery that is community-driven.

As per the announcement, Solana Summer Shandy will be rolling out in limited quantities, which includes a total of 333 beers in 16-packs.

Each of the beers comes with an SOL non-fungible token [NFT] that will begin by being redeemed on 29 Aug. Once it is redeemed, one can reclaim the beer.

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BarrelDAO Drops Limited-Edition Solana Beer Featuring Popular NFTs 6

BarrelDAO is planning to release the digital collectibles on Magic Eden, a leading NFT marketplace created on the SOL blockchain. Each of 16-pack is priced at 1.35 SOL, which is near to around $45 at press time. The price includes the beer shipping across the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.

The co-founder and CEO of Barrel Labs, Dave Goldman, revealed that the firm owns around 20 of the individual NFTs on the cans. However, 23 of these have been listed through licensing agreements reached with the holders of the NFTs. He further stated,

Over the past three days, we painstakingly went through and licensed every single NFT used in this can design. We knew that this could kick off a big conversation about IP in the NFT space, and wanted to be sure that we set a standard for other [consumer packaged goods] brands to follow.

Further, the beer is a part of a unique promotional activity for the projects built on the SOL network. Earlier Solana stole the limelight after it announced its very own mobile- Saga Phone [web3-compatible] and an IRL store.

Solana Expands Its Real-World Use Cases

The latter was its first physical store Solana Spaces in New York City, to sell cryptocurrency-related products.

The store featured an NFT gallery with the Degenerate Apes Academy Collection hanging on the walls. It contains an interactive installation showcasing all transactions and processes on the Solana blockchain as they happen in real-time.

Cardano’s Metaverse & Kevin Hart Tease A Brand New Collab

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The Cardano ecosystem is teeming with a lot of interesting activities. The latest of which is a celebrity collaboration in its metaverse project. Announcing the same via Twitter, Virtua has joined hands with American comedian and actor Kevin Hart to build metaverse on the platform.

“We’re really excited to be working with the main man himself, Kevin Hart to bring his metaverse vision to life,” the tweet read. Adding a gif of one of Hart’s iconic memes, “It’s About To Go Down!”

While the specifics had not been shared at the time of this post, Hart too confirmed the announcement.

Prior to this, the star comic partnered with virtual entertainment firm Virtua and web3 platform Moonwalk to launch “Confessions From the Hart” NFTs on his 43rd birthday.

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Cardano's Metaverse & Kevin Hart Tease A Brand New Collab 9

With the latest collaboration, Kevin Hart has joined the ranks of other American celebrities, like Martin Lawrence and Snoop Dogg, who have also launched NFTs on Cardano.

Earlier in April, Snoop Dogg and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson met in an epic Twitter space to discuss music and NFTs.

Later, one of its native NFT projects Clay Nation launched its official collaboration with Snoop Dogg and Champ Medici, thus bringing iconic clay animations, land pitches, and unlockable music content to Cardano.

Cardano and Terra Virtua- Where It All Began

On April 25, Hoskinson and Jawad Ashraf, Terra Virtua CEO, were in discussions about the duo’s collaboration and future plans. IOHK, its parent firm also put out a reminder by sharing Terra Virtua’s post on Twitter and noting the date of the event.

The Virtua NFT marketplace was the result of a collaboration with Cardano Island serving as a representation of its Metaverse.

Terra Virtua which has been constructing NFT and metaverses since 2018, continues to broaden its reach by incorporating cell gadgets, AR and VR.

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Cardano's Metaverse & Kevin Hart Tease A Brand New Collab 10

Its newly developed NFT market on the Cardano blockchain in an attempt to revamp the house of digital collectibles by means of gamification, discovering new methods to interact with customers and advertise larger sustainability.

Additionally, it has its very own token: Terra Virtua Kolect [TVK]. 

Another Cardano-based Metaverse Cardalonia has recently integrated Adahandle and is set to release the first Play To Earn game trailer. Built on the Cardano network, Cardalonia is powered by the LONIA utility token.

Snoop Dogg Unfazed On Crypto Winter, Says “Great Things” Are On The Way

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Popular Rapper and NFT connoisseur Snoop Dogg appeared unhinged when asked about the recent market downturn. In an interview with CNBC, the celebrity spoke on the current bear market and the future of NFTs.

“I feel like every great industry has a downfall,” Snoop said. “There’s been a depression in every industry you can look at … alcohol, tobacco, clothing, food; every industry you can imagine.”

Snoop Dogg continued.

“This [crypto winter] weeded out all the people who weren’t supposed to be in the space and who were abusing the opportunities that were there. Now it’s going to bring on great business, and moving forward, when the market comes back, there will only be great things to pick and choose from,” he added.

Next, on NFT, the rap star said music labels would eventually have no choice other than to enter the sector. As per Snoop, catalogs are much better in blockchain than sitting on cobwebs!

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Snoop Dogg Unfazed On Crypto Winter, Says "Great Things" Are On The Way 12

“I know [NFTs] have a great opportunity to be big in music because sooner or later the labels are going to have to come on in. They’re going to have to come on home and sit at the table and understand that catalogs and things they hold onto are better served on the blockchain than sitting in the catalog collecting cobwebs.”

Snoop Dogg’s latest venture is a collaboration with Food Fighters Universe [FFU], which touts itself to be the world’s first NFT restaurant group. However, his appearance with a fellow rapper grabbed headlines.

Snoop Dogg & Eminem Appeared On A Music Video Featuring BAYC

Snoop Dogg along with another prominent rap legend Eminem released a new music video that showcased the Bored Ape Yacht Club [BAYC].

Their latest single called “From the D 2 The LBC” launched at this year’s Apefest, an annual gathering for BAYC and Mutant Ape Yacht Club [MAYC] owners.

The duo’s music video has been trending on Youtube and has been viewed over 8 million times.

Since then, ApeCoin, a token launched by Bored Ape creators Yuga Labs, has shot up, increasing in value by 15% this past week and 21.6% during the past two weeks.

However, APE’s current $4.79 value is trading at 82% lower than the all-time high of $26.70 per unit.

BAYC & OtherSide Discords Breached; Estimated Loss Of $360K

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Some of NFT’s biggest names- Bored Ape Yacht Club or BAYC & OtherSide discords servers were compromised, leading to a loss of around 200 ETH or $360000 in total. Yuga Labs, the creator firm behind the projects confirmed the exploit via Twitter adding that it is actively investigating the incident.

It all started when the project’s community manager, Boris Vagner‘s Discord account got hacked. The bad actor took advantage of the breached profile and posted phishing links in both the official BAYC and its related metaverse project called Otherside’s Discord channels.

According to reports, the hacker managed to take away 32 NFTs including one Bored Ape, two Mutant Apes, and five Otherside Deeds.

Hackers have targeted Discord Inc. groups in order to get users to click on malicious links. Previously covered by TronWeekly, on May 25, 2020, a Moonbirds NFT owner lost 29 of these Ethereum-based tokens in phishing fraud.

The stolen NFTs were valued at roughly $1.5 million. But the most recent high-profile case of impersonation fraud has been that of Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, a digital artist and popular NFT developer whose Twitter account was hacked by scammers to post a phishing scam.

BAYC hack detailed analysis

Co-founder of Yuga Labs Gorden Goner tweeted that “We took accountability with our tweet from BAYC. We are directly working with those impacted.” He then blamed instant messaging platform Discord saying it was time for a “better platform that puts security first”.

In response, a user ask him to stop blaming Discord and accused the team of being complacent, as “this could have been prevented”.

Some vented out their frustration by calling the exploit “Ponzi of the century”.

One Twitter user wrote– ” Probably a rogue team member or a team member didn’t have 2FA [ Two-factor authentication] enabled and got phished or hacked individually. the entire team from mods and up should be required 2FA by default though, especially in the BAYC server.”

Another commented in the replies that 2FA can easily be bypassed and is somewhat pointless on Discord. That being said, one can check OxRebels’s post-mortem technical report detailing how the 2FA Discord Announcements Bot might help minimize the repeat of such attacks.

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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.

Mint Price of Popular NFTs Including Otherside Plummet

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Floor prices for several of the most popular NFT collections, including the top-traded Otherdeed for Otherside metaverse land, are falling to their lowest levels in over a week.

As more big collections are hit, the disputed Otherdeed for Otherside nonfungible token (NFT) floor price has plummeted below its mint price to 2.45 Ether (ETH), worth roughly $5,713 at the time of writing.

Yuga Labs’ Otherdeed for Otherside collection, which included the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection, was a much-anticipated NFT mint for their planned metaverse platform.

Top NFTs show evident price drop

The excitement around the new mint appears to have worn off, as the collection’s floor price fell to 2.45 ETH before stabilizing, according to NFT market NFTGo. At the time of debut, each Otherside land cost around 2.9 ETH.

Since Wednesday, when it was hovering at 3.5 ETH, which was worth over $10,000, the floor price has been falling.

Otherdeed generated a commotion in the market when it choked the ETH network and drove gas prices to absurdly high levels during its mint day, prompting Yuga Labs to concede there was a problem and refund all rejected transactions’ gas fees.

In addition to Yuga’s Otherdeed collection, the floor price of the omnipresent BAYC collection has plummeted in the last seven days. The BAYC floor price has plummeted by 15% to 91 ETH since Wednesday. While this still amounts to around $212,000, it is about $100,000 less than it was a week ago.

Azuki, the anime-inspired art NFTs, is another prominent collection that has had its floor price decline. Azuki’s floor price has dropped by more than half since May 4, from 30.5 ETH to 15 ETH.

On the largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, BAYC, Otherdeed, and Azuki are all trading among the top 10 collections.

Sluggish sales volumes throughout the whole non-fungible tokens market may be the main reason for the reduction in floor pricing. Up until Monday, the seven-day volume for Non-fungible tokens had been steadily declining.

On the other hand, the market has had a roughly equal and opposite reaction in the last 24 hours. According to NFTGo, sales volume has increased by 32% since Monday.

Otherdeeds’ 24-hour sales volume is up 52 percent, BAYC’s is up 30.5 percent, and Azuki’s is up a staggering 1802 percent by collection. The decreased ETH prices likely indicate a bargain for the collectors.

Elon Musk Trolls NFT amidst Otherdeeds’ Buying Frenzy Fizzling Out

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Elon Musk appears to take a potshot at NFT by saying “dunno seems kinda fungible,” in a tweet on 4th May. The tech billionaire changed his Twitter profile picture to an image featuring various avatars from the Bored Ape non-fungible token collection.

Due to this, the token price of the digital project soared briefly. ApeCoin, the token launched by Bored Ape creators Yuga Labs, surged 19% in an hour at around 8 a.m. ET to a daily high of $17.5 following Musk’s profile image change.

The price has since retraced back and at press time trading at about $15.44. It’s not known exactly if Musk actually bought a Bored Ape NFT. Nevertheless, the billionaire liked a tweet from Michael Bouhanna, an executive at auction house Sotheby’s.

Bouhanna reacted to his new profile pic and offered to send him”the original file minted with the buyer’s approval.”

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Elon Musk Trolls NFT amidst Otherdeeds' Buying Frenzy Fizzling Out 15

Looks like Musk might have simply right-clicked and saved the picture to make it his profile image. Or this could mean something else. Who Knows! given that the celebratory “Meme Lord” is well known for his Twitter musings.

The tweet comes at a time when BAYC’S Otherdeeds Nft sparked a buying frenzy last weekend that led to skyrocketing gas fees on Ethereum.

NFTs are losing their sheen?

Yuga Labs, the creator of the popular Bored Apes Yacht Club collections, netted roughly $320 million on Saturday from the launch, making it the biggest sale of its kind. Each buyer paid $5,800 per NFT, plus as much as $6,000 in transaction costs or “gas fees”

Once the initial euphoria subsided, prices dropped like hot potato! prompting backlash from the Twitter community, with some accusing the sale of being botched.

According to DappRadar, trading volume for Otherdeeds shed by 68% on Tuesday from a day earlier, despite it being the most traded NFT collection over a 24-hour window.

The NFT market is known for its extreme volatility and has struggled to maintain momentum in secondary markets, and sometimes, in primary markets as well.

One in three NFT collections, on average, have little to no trading activity, according to blockchain analytics firm Nansen. Another third is trading below the amount it cost issuers to mint the tokens. 

Ethereum crumbles as Otherside NFTs sell for a record-breaking $317M

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Ethereum [ETH] buckled under pressure during the record-shattering sale of Otherdeed non-fungible tokens [NFTs] on Yuga labs’s new project, the Otherside metaverse. As the world’s largest NFT mint unfolded, ETH gas prices surge to 8000 Gwei, data from Etherscan block explorer showed.

For the record, Otherdeed NFTs could be minted only in APE, it also required ETH for gas fees. The minting mechanics set by Yuga Labs intended the sale of NFTs in phases keeping note of the gas price. However, that didnt go smoothly as anticipated.

Chaos soon descended where Ethereum users tried to buy NFTs at the same time and outbid each other by using the network’s transaction fees.

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That caused the fees on the blockchain to spike to unprecedented levels, in addition to users experiencing failed transactions due to blockchain bottlenecks.

High mint fees caused many to complain they were unable to make purchases.

Ethereum’s high gas fees act as spoiler

Yuga Labs then took to Twitter saying that the Otherside metaverse may be looking to migrate away from Ethereum to its own Layer 1 blockchain to improve scalability.

“We’re sorry for turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while. It seems abundantly clear that ApeCoin will need to migrate to its own chain in order to properly scale.”

For those that lost their ETH holdings in gas due to failed transactions, Yuga Labs has promised to refund the gas amount back to the users.

The mint price cost 305 ApeCoin, worth nearly $5,800 at the time of mint. It raked in 16.7 million ApeCoin [$317 million], making it a all-time largest NFT mint.

For those unfamiliar, a mint is a public offering in which NFTs are sold through a smart contract on a blockchain like Ethereum.

Todays’s event highlighted Ethereum’s exorbitant gas fees which have been a long-standing concern among the community.

The Ethereum serenity upgrade is currently in the second phase, which includes a number of activities, including migrating to a PoS protocol and sharding chains. Once these two upgrades are completed, the ETH’s chain speed is expected to increase drastically, and bring down the gas fee significantly.