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OpenSea and WMG collaborate for a greater purpose of Web3

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In a news statement on Thursday, Warner Music Group announced a partnership with the OpenSea marketplace. Through the partnership, a number of WMG artists will have a platform to grow and expand their Web3 fan bases.

Through the partnership, Warner Music artists will have first access to new OpenSea goods, increased market discoverability, and dedicated and highlighted areas of the OpenSea website for prospective NFT projects. Additionally, members of the OpenSea team will provide specialist assistance to artists to help with both the growth of their Web3 fan bases and the integration of current fan communities into the NFT environment.

Warner’s Chief Digital Officer, Oana Ruxandra, stated,

“Our collaboration with OpenSea helps to facilitate these [fan] communities by unlocking Web3 tools and resources to build opportunities for artists to establish deeper engagement, access, and ownership.”

Warner Records and Jeremy Fall’s web3 business, Probably Nothing, will collaborate to release the first NFT collection as a result of the cooperation.

‘Probably A Label’ to launch the OpenSea and WMG collaboration

‘Probably A Label’, the Web3 record label Fall formed last month with Warner Records, will release NFT Label Passes as the first Warner Music/OpenSea collaboration, according to Fall’s confirmation to local media.

The NFT Label Pass will give owners access to Probably A Label’s upcoming music releases, the ability to create and invest in community-generated, IP-backed virtual musicians, as well as the ability to attend exclusive live events like artist meet-and-greets and meals with music executives.

Basis for Probably The goal of A Label is to use Web3 technology to provide musicians and their fans the chance to reclaim their ownership rights. Fall thinks that traditional music industry giant Warner Music is proven to be a fantastic partner in that effort. Fall went on to say,

“They are the type of major label that is trying to enter the space the right way, and adapt to the current climate, what culture looks like now. They’re in favor of the artists and pushing the IP conversation forward.”

The NFT Label Pass will give owners access to Studio A and Studio B in addition to music-related benefits. These IP incubators let participants pitch projects using their ownership of specific blue-chip NFTs like Bored Apes and Cryptopunks—which the studio may choose to develop, finance, market, and cosign.

OpenSea Is Extending Support to the Merge With Proof-of-Stake NFT Support

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Once the Merge is complete, OpenSea, the biggest NFT marketplace, intends to offer NFTs built on the proof-of-stake variant of the Ethereum blockchain.

According to The Block statistics, almost $31 billion in Ethereum-linked NFTs have been exchanged on the platform so far. The entire amount is composed of trading in NFTs supported by the current proof-of-work (PoW) Ethereum version, which surpasses the volume of trade for NFTs tied to other blockchains.

“First, and most importantly, we are committed to solely supporting NFTs on the upgraded PoS [proof-of-stake] chain.”

OpenSea wrote in a Twitter thread

OpenSea doesn’t speculate on any potential forks

OpenSea wrote in the tweet that it won’t speculate on any potential forks post-merge on ETHPoW and won’t be supported on the platform.

“Beyond our commitment to supporting the upgraded PoS chain, we’ve been preparing the OpenSea product to ensure a smooth transition.”

This month, as part of The Merge, which marks the culmination of Ethereum’s shift from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, the so-called Beacon Chain and its validators will form the core of the blockchain network.

The move will have an impact on many different crypto enterprises, and they have been putting a lot of effort into preparing. There won’t be just one phase in the Merge process.

There won’t be just one phase in the Merge process. The Bellatrix network upgrade and the Paris upgrade are two separate steps that will be completed. The last update before the integration will be the Bellatrix upgrade.

The Ropsten, Sepolia, and Goerli are just a few of the public testnets that the Ethereum testnet has traversed. The Bellatrix is described as a network improvement by the Ethereum Foundation. Additionally, Bellatrix is the final update before the merging is finished with the Paris upgrade.

The Merge is anticipated to be completed by September 20 and the implications on the ecosystem can only be analyzed post Merge.

Polygon Support Added by OpenSea Along With Other Features

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The layer two scaling solution, Polygon, has been included in the Seaport protocol implementation by OpenSea, the largest NFT market by volume.

OpenSea stated in June that it was abandoning the Wyvern protocol in favor of Seaport, an open-source marketplace protocol that has been examined by Web3 security companies OpenZeppelin and Trail of Bits. At the time, OpenSea claimed switching to OpenSea would result in an annual fee savings of $460 million.

“Starting today, we will begin using Seaport for all new listings and offers on Polygon! We’re excited to start using Seaport across multiple blockchains to improve the experience for everyone on OpenSea.”

Polygon support added to beat high Ethereum fees

The latest change was done in an effort to lower the price of Ethereum gas, make signature confirmation operations easier to read, and get rid of the necessity that new users pay an initial setup fee.

OpenSea announced the introduction of the new support in a blog post, stating that they were “happy to do so” after studying Seaport’s effects for several months and gathering helpful feedback. “We will add support for Klaytn and other EVM-compatible chains as well,” the statement continued.

Using Seaport on Polygon, according to OpenSea, allows for the introduction of a number of additional features, such as no listing thresholds, collection and attribute offer multiple creator rewards, and bulk transfers.

The capability to list and purchase on OpenSea using the Polygon network’s native token, MATIC, maybe the most significant new feature.

“As part of the shift to Seaport, OpenSea now supports using MATIC, Polygon’s native token, as a payment option. Anyone transacting on Polygon using OpenSea will now be required to pay for their own gas fees for transacting using MATIC.”

Other features include English and Dutch auctions, purchasing for another wallet, and native token support. etc.

NFT Marketplace OpenSea Hit by a Major Email Data Breach

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The biggest nonfungible tokens (NFT) marketplace in the world, OpenSea, has issued a warning to users after learning that a Customer.io employee may have sent the list of NFT market users’ email addresses to a third party while working on the platform for handling email newsletters and campaigns.

The problem has an effect on all users who have given the marketplace their email addresses, either for the platform or its newsletter. OpenSea warned consumers about potential phishing efforts after the hack.

On Thursday, the NFT market said that it had spoken to law authorities about the incident and that a probe was ongoing.

OpenSea has been quite vulnerable to breaches and attacks

OpenSea’s recent data leak is far from the first significant attack this year on the marketplace and its subscribers. In May, the popular NFT marketplace’s Discord server was breached, leading to a flurry of phishing attempts. Various users’ wallets were in fact abused.

The platform had one of its most serious attacks to date in January, during which a vulnerability permitted hackers to sell NFTs without authorization. The market covered losses of $1.8 million.

Customer.io rival Hubspot was breached in March, revealing users’ identities, contact information, and email addresses on BlockFi, Swan Bitcoin, NYDIG, and Circle. Names, phone numbers, and email addresses of users of various sites were disclosed to an unauthorized person.

Hackers may try to contact NFT market clients by sending emails from names that resemble OpenSea.io or OpenSea.xyz, according to a warning from the NFT market. Twitter users have noted an upsurge in spam emails, texts, and phone calls.

Inquiring as to whether the outside party received the list of email addresses or whether they also received the list of associated blockchain addresses, renowned cryptocurrency whistleblower Fatman Terra questioned.

An NFT marketplace staff responded by saying that Customer.io did not have access to the user’s wallet address.

OpenSea to address scams and IP violation

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Devin Finzer, co-founder and CEO of OpenSea, said the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace would step up its efforts to combat fraud and plagiarism.

Although fraud, intellectual property (IP) theft, and plagiarism are prohibited under OpenSea’s conditions, “at our scale, thorough policies aren’t enough,” Finzer wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

To date, the platform has developed systems to counteract the majority of prohibited actions, including a new authentication system, an image scanning “copy mint prevention system,” and improved search capability to assist users in finding genuine information.

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OpenSea went on to state that the firm’s primary focus areas are trust, safety, and customer experience, beginning with transparent user guidelines and standards spelled out in its Terms of Service. Because not all NFT marketplaces follow and enforce the same standards, the company’s Terms provide the ground rules for what is and isn’t allowed on OpenSea. They also serve as a vital guide for the community and wider ecosystem.

OpenSea an open sea of lawsuits

Despite this, the ecosystem is replete with fraud and hacking, and OpenSea – the largest platform by market volume – has been chastised in the past for being slow to respond to events where stolen NFTs were sold on.

OpenSea, one of the most well-known crypto startups, is facing backlash over nonfungible coins that have been stolen and plagiarised.

Plagiarism has also increased on OpenSea, with vendors converting traditional artwork into NFTs and then selling the pieces without paying the original creator.

Mr. Chapman is one of many crypto aficionados who have expressed concerns about OpenSea, an eBay-style website where users may explore millions of NFTs, buy them, and sell their own. OpenSea has grown to be the leading NFT marketplace and one of the most well-known crypto start-ups in the previous 18 months. The business has raised more than $400 million in funding from investors, valuing it at a whopping $13.3 billion, and has hired executives from internet behemoths such as Meta and Lyft.

Mr. Chapman missed out on his projected ApeCoin windfall because he had lost his ape, which he had planned to spend to buy a property near his wife’s family outside of Houston.

OpenSea, on the other hand, stated in May that it was deploying image-recognition technology to combat plagiarism. However, because the scanning program only compares newly uploaded images to other NFTs on OpenSea, it is unlikely to find artwork copied from other websites.

Ex OpenSea Employee Charged for Insider Trading

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Ex OpenSea employee Nate Chastain could face up to 40 years in prison for an elaborate conspiracy to benefit from NFTs by utilizing insider information.

Chastain is charged for profiting from insider knowledge of the foreknowledge of which NFTs would be displayed on OpenSea’s home page by buying the NFTs and reselling them for substantially more than they were originally listed for in an indictment unsealed today by the United States Attorney official.

Chastain allegedly took advantage of a scenario in which purchasers were ready to pay a premium for NFTs exhibited on OpenSea’s main page and for NFTs by the same artist whose work was displayed on the homepage between June and September 2021.

Chastain bought the NFTs because he knew which NFTs would be highlighted on the home page. He sold them for up to five times their initial quoted price when they surfaced on the home page later.

Nate was using OpenSea’s insider information for personal gain

“NFTs might be new, but this type of criminal scheme is not. As alleged, Nathaniel Chastain betrayed OpenSea by using its confidential business information to make money for himself. Today’s charges demonstrate the commitment of this Office to stamping out insider trading – whether it occurs on the stock market or the blockchain.”

Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney

Chastain hid his identity by using anonymous crypto wallets and profiles on OpenSea, as first reported by Twitter user Zuwu.

OpenSea responded by claiming it would conduct “an urgent and thorough examination of the situation,” subsequently revealing that a third party was looking into it. After that, the company changed its policy to ban employees from purchasing or selling items from current marketplace collections.

One count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering have been filed against Nate Chastain. A maximum term of 20 years in prison is imposed on each of these offenses.

OpenSea Deploy New Web3 “Seaport” Marketplace On Ethereum

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NFT kingpin OpenSea unveiled Seaport, a new web3 marketplace protocol for safely and efficiently buying and selling NFTs. Build for all builders, creators, and collectors of NFTs, the platform claimed that the core smart contract is open source with no contract owner, upgradeability, or other special privileges. 

Unlike conventional NFT marketplace where users can trade digital collectibles via only crypto as a medium of exchange, Seaport enables users to offer an array of payment tokens like ETH / ERC20 / ERC721 / ERC1155.

In order for that offer to be accepted, a number of items must be received by the recipients indicated by the offerer. One can assume it to be a modern version of a Barter system.

Besides that, the newly launched OpenSea protocol will allow specific trades and swaps. Twitteratis appeared to be puzzled by the new features.

One user tried to offer his interpretation by saying that users can open “channels” and set criteria such as “I’ll swap this BAYC for three Azuki’s + 20 eth” and if someone deposits those matching assets, the trade occurs.

Not only that, the Seaport protocol has introduced the “tipping” as long as the amount does not exceed that of the original offer.

“This allows alternative interfaces to include their own fees and can be combined with zones to support listings with dynamic amounts and recipients, as well as other novel applications like on-chain English auctions,” the blog read.

OpenSea’s open-source new protocol isn’t the first?

The world’s largest NFT marketplace also stated that this is just the beginning for Seaport. “We built the initial version of the protocol to unlock use cases and optimizations that creators and collectors expect from a modern web3 marketplace,” it added.

Having said that, some drew a comparison with the leading DEX Uniswap’s V3 launch. Solidity Developer Shegen tweeted,

“The @opensea Seaport launch is basically a UniSwap v3 moment for NFTs in terms of market efficiency and access to better tools for the general public.”

On May 5th, 2021, UniSwap V3 was unveiled on the Ethereum mainnet. The DEX’s latest version brought forth the new concept of multiple pools per pair of tokens, each with a different swap fee.

OpenSea Discord Compromised, Promoting Fake NFT Passes

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According to tweets from users and security firm PeckShield, OpenSea’s Discord service was hacked to push a fraud.

“We are presently researching a potential vulnerability in our Discord,” said OpenSea. “Please do not click on any links on the Discord.”

The access appears to have been exploited to advertise a phony NFT mint. As per the screenshots from different individuals, a Discord server announcement stated that a mint pass was being issued in partnership with YouTube. It sent users to a page that had the name YouTube but was not the actual YouTube website. The URL has been detected as a phishing site by PeckShield.

The invader appeared to have been able to stay on the server for a long time before OpenSea technicians were able to recover control. The hacker was successful in posting follow-ups to the first false announcement, reiterating the phony link, and stating that 70% of the supply had already been coined in an attempt to induce “fear of missing out” among victims.

The fraudster also tried to persuade OpenSea users by stating that anyone who claimed the NFTs would receive “crazy utilities” from YouTube. They state that this offer is one-of-a-kind and that there will be no more rounds to engage in, which is typical of con artists.

In the announcements channel, the hoax message was disseminated. Users can no longer access this channel.

At least 13 OpenSea users compromised

As of this writing, on-chain data indicates that 13 wallets have been infiltrated, with the most valued NFT taken being a Founders’ Pass worth about 3.33 ETH ($8,982.58).

According to initial reports, the hacker exploited webhooks to get access to server controls. A webhook is a server plugin that allows other applications to get real-time data from the server.

Hackers are increasingly using webhooks as an attack vector since they allow them to send messages using official server accounts.

The OpenSea Discord server isn’t the only one that uses webhooks. In early April, many popular NFT collections’ channels, including Bored Ape Yacht Club, Doodles, and KaijuKings, were hacked, allowing the hacker to utilize official server accounts to publish phishing emails.

Can Instagram dethrone OpenSea as the largest NFT marketplace?

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Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement of Instagram hosting NFT sent the crypto community into a tizzy. In March 2022 at the South by Southwest [SXSW] conference, Zuckerberg said, “Hopefully, in the next few months, you’ll be able to mint NFTs within Instagram.”Prior to this, Adam Mosseri, the head of the social networking platform had shared that it was “definitely actively exploring NFTs”.

Proponents believe this might be the turning point as the popular social media platform has a user base of more than a billion people. In fact, analysts from Deutsche Bank went on to predict that the addition of blockchain-based digital works of art on Instagram can lead to an influx of millions of new users and possibly generate billions in revenue for the social media giant.

Until now, OpenSea managed to remain the undisputed king. With their 1.4 million users and trading volume worth $23 billion, they are at the top of the NFT game. In Jan 2022 alone, the platform saw $5 million worth of NFT sales. But with the introduction of these unique digital tokens on Instagram, Opensea might finally meet its match.

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Can Instagram dethrone OpenSea as the largest NFT marketplace? 3

One cannot deny the fact that the NFT marketplace is an extremely lucrative place as seen from its widespread adoption by firms around the world. So, it’s understandable why a social networking site decides to plunge into the highly competitive NFT market.

Instagram will top 2 billion monthly active users in 2023

Besides experts from Deutsche Bank envisioned that Instagram will have 2.2 billion monthly active users in 2023. According to their estimates, even if a mere 2 percent of those users start trading NFTs, it would open up a marketplace of 44 million people. This is roughly 31 times more users than Open sea.

Earlier this year, a new NFT platform for Instagram called Everlens went live. The platform championed itself as the first NFT marketplace dedicated to social networks, allowing over 1.4 billion Instagram users to connect to the Everlens NFT marketplace and trade their posts for NFTs.

It uses the ELEN cryptocurrency as the main token to power the marketplace, enabling users to create, buy, sell, swap, and display a wide range of unique digital artifacts.

OpenSea in troubled waters; faces 3 lawsuits over stolen BAYC NFTs

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OpenSea’s trouble woes continued to pile up after a year rife with hacks and scams that have already played havoc on the world’s largest NFT platform. As per sources, the Nft marketplace is now facing three separate lawsuits from plaintiffs who lost access to their Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.

Texas native Timmy McKimmy and Michael Valise of New York both claimed to have lost Bored Apes in a hack that exploited a known security vulnerability in OpenSea’s code. The third plaintiff Robert Armijo, of Nevada, said he lost his NFTs in a social engineering attack which he blamed was caused due to the platform’s negligence.

As per court filings, McKimmy also failed to get compensation for the lost assets despite numerous requests with the platform though OpenSea allegedly told him that it was “actively investigating” the issue.

OpenSea Has Prioritized Growth over Consumer Safety- Court filings

According to the court documents, Armijo suggested a certain website and the user sent him a link to it, claiming that they had already uploaded their NFTs. As he clicked the link, his wallet containing his two Mutant Apes and his Bored Ape, along with some cryptocurrency, was drained off.

Armijo then attempted to contact OpenSea to freeze his assets, But he reportedly encountered numerous obstructions. “Mr. Armijo tried to find a phone number to contact the customer service, but no such number exists,” read the court documents. He next went to OpenSea’s Discord server.”

There too, Armijo didn’t receive any responses. As this critical window of time closed, the plaintiff found his stolen Bored Ape was listed on OpenSea and sold off two hours after the hack.

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Armijo accused the platform’s delayed reply who took 4 hours to respond to Armijo’s help tickets and froze his Mutant Apes. But that could not do any good, as the hacker already listed the Mutant Apes on LooksRare, where they were sold almost immediately. Frustrated, Armijo is now suing LooksRare as well.

“OpenSea has prioritized growth over consumer safety and the security of consumer’s digital assets,” the complaint reads.

The complaint cited the example of an approval process that OpenSea used to have, which required that NFTs be verified before upload by their proper owner. The process was discontinued in March 2021, since then thefts became rampant, it alleged.