cryptocurrency
Bored Ape Yacht Club continue to grow empire, launch new cryptocurrency
The juggernaut that is the Bored Ape Yacht Club shows no sign of slowing down. The founding company, Yuga Labs, announced the launch of a new cryptocurrency which will be leveraged to continue to build the ecosystem around the popular NFT collection. Aptly titled ApeCoin, it will be the “primary token for all new products and services” from the company. BAYC Success Unless you have been living under a rock, you will be familiar with the meteoric success story that is the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The cartoon monkeys are the most coveted NFTs in crypto, with the highedst floor price of 85 ETH ($238,000), above even CryptoPunks (62 ETH = $174,000). They have set the template for how to succeed, focusing not only on the art – which, akin to a lot of NFTs, is not anything especially unique – but a...
Coinbase enables users to fund wallets from Chrome browser extension
On Wednesday, Coinbase launched a new feature, dubbed “Coinbase Pay,” that enables its clients to fund their Coinbase Wallets directly from a Chrome browser extension. According to its staff, Coinbase Pay intends to make it intuitive for anyone to participate in decentralized finance, or DeFi, swap tokens on decentralized exchanges, or DEXs, and purchase nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, in just a few clicks. Specifically, they wrote: “Before Coinbase Pay, users who wanted to add funds to their Coinbase Wallet from the browser extension needed to navigate to Coinbase.com, sign in to their account, copy-paste their wallet address, and manually transfer funds from their Coinbase account. The process was not only cumbersome, but also left the user vulnerable to user error.”...
ConsenSys raises $450M in Series D funding, doubles valuation in four months
On Tuesday, ConsenSys, the leading Ethereum and decentralized protocols software company with product suites such as MetaMask, Infura and Truffle, announced the close of a $450-million Series D funding round led by ParaFi Capital. Notable new investors included Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Microsoft, Anthos Capital, Sound Ventures and C Ventures. The deal more than doubles its valuation since the firm’s $200-million Series C raise in November 2021. Proceeds from the round will, in part, be converted to Ether (ETH) to rebalance the ratio of ETH to United States dollar equivalents in ConsenSys’ treasury. The firm actively seeks to use its own financial infrastructure to earn yields on such assets in decentralized finance (DeFi), protocols and via staking. The proceeds wil...
Ethereum Merge testing on Kiln mostly successful, save for one minor bug
On Tuesday, Ethereum (ETH) developer Tim Beiko tweeted that Kiln successfully passed the Ethereum Merge, with validators producing post-merge blocks containing transactions. Kiln will be the last Merge testnet (formerly Ethereum 2.0) before existing public testnets are upgraded. “Merge” involves taking Ethereum’s Execution Layer from the existing Proof of Work layer and merging it with the Consensus Layer from the Beacon chain, turning the blockchain into a proof-of-stake network. The Foundation writes: “This merge signals the culmination of six years of research and development in Ethereum and will result in a more secure network, predictable block times, and a 99.98%+ reduction in power use when it is released on mainnet later in 2022.” However, it app...
PayPal CEO Dan Schulman asserts crypto will reshape the financial landscape
The PayPal executive doesn’t care much for the price of Bitcoin but rather its role in the financial system going forward PayPal has been delving deeper into crypto initiatives, recently revealing plans for a stablecoin Dan Schulman, the Chief Executive Officer of financial services company PayPal, has doubled down on his belief in the role of cryptocurrencies in an evolving financial world. Schulman spoke of his conviction in crypto as he responded to questions from CTech ahead of his scheduled speech at Axis Tel Aviv, an international investment and innovation conference to be held later this month. The FinTech CEO explained that he expects that, in addition to the ballooning utility of crypto payments, the convergence of virtual assets, including stablecoins, central bank digital ...
CoinSmart CEO Interview: Fraud in Crypto
There are a lot of odd holidays in the calendar. My personal favourite is National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, celebrated annually on April 2nd. It falls the day after April Fool’s Day, which, without sounding too miserable, I was never really entertained by. One holiday that is far from a joke, however, is May 9th – National Lost Sock Memorial Day, a time for us to “honour all the socks that are no longer with us”. The reason I discuss such wacky holidays is that I was surprised to note that March represents Fraud Prevention Month in Canada. Upon originally seeing this, I thought was a little over the top. Then, I thought about the harm fraud can cause and looked into the numbers. Based on the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC), $379 million were lost to scams and fraud in 2021 (up 130% f...
Report: Axie Infinity accounted for nearly two-thirds of blockchain-game NFT transactions in 2021
According to a recent report curated by NonFungible, players of the monster-battle nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, game Axie Infinity transacted nearly $3.5 billion worth of NFTs in 2021. This accounts for almost two-thirds of all NFTs transacted in the entire blockchain gaming industry in 2021. In second and third place were sports highlights marketplace NBA Top Shot with $827 million and community gaming platform Loot with $242 million, respectively. Created by Vietnamese video game developer Sky Mavis in 2018, the game contains creatures called “Axies” that players collect and use to complete daily quests, duel other players, etc. Every Axie is an NFT minted on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Completing tasks with Axies rewards players with Smooth Love Potions (SLPs), which can ...
What happened Solana, and what is next?
Perhaps no coin symbolises the rollercoaster ride of crypto better than Solana (SOL). It’s been a journey filled with meteoric highs and crushing lows – so let’s dive in to exactly what has happened over the last year, and what the future holds for Solana. Ethereum’s Problems The phrase “Ethereum-killer” gets thrown around a lot in crypto. For the most part, I roll my eyes. Sure, ETH has its fair share of problems. Even amid the recent parabolic rise in oil prices, gas in the real world still looks like a bargain compared to Ethereum. Given the extent of these fees, it has very much become the blockchain of the elites, with transactions completely unfeasible unless in very large amounts. Still cheaper than Ethereum though… Having said that, the network effects and first mover advantage wit...
How HAL and Aldrin are helping to keep crypto assets secure during bear markets
Crypto bear markets are known for their downturns and their liquidations for investors who are trading with leverage. On top of that, decentralized finance, or DeFi, projects can become targeted by hacks or suffer rug pulls, leading to enormous losses for investors of their tokens. Now new software seeks to alert investors in real-time about potential risks to their positions. Users and executives from two such services, HAL and Aldrin, explain. HAL is a Web3 data infrastructure tool allowing companies or traders to track, monitor and trigger data. HAL recently launched simple API notifications on Avalanche (AVAX), which seeks to enable users on the blockchain to automate notifications of risky positions. Meanwhile, Aldrin is the first fully-audited decentralized exchange, or DEX, on...
DeFi detective alleges this ‘suspicious’ smart contract code may put dozens of projects at risk
According to famed decentralized finance (DeFi) detective Zachxbt, 31 nonfungible token (NFT) projects may be at risk due to “suspicious code.” In a lengthy Twitter thread published Tuesday, the DeFi detective first raised the issue of NFT project Thestarlab, which was allegedly compromised for 197.175 Ether (ETH), worth $580,325 at the time of publication. Zachxbt quoted fellow blockchain investigator MouseDev, who came to the following conclusion after reviewing the code behind Thestarlab: “The smart contract [for this project] can never truly be renounced or transferred—only an additional owner. The original deployer will always be considered the owner. This means if they still have the private key of the deployer, they can pull the money, even though...
Who is Buying Crypto in South Africa?
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Coinbase acts to ensure compliance with sanctions against Russia
Crypto exchange Coinbase says it has blocked over 25k Russian addresses linked to illicit dealings The exchange has submitted the idea of using crypto tech over traditional fiat to ensure sanctions compliance In an official blog post published today, the largest crypto exchange in the US, Coinbase, has voiced its support for the range of sanctions placed against Russia. The exchange insisted that sanctions play a critical role in national security and dissuading unlawful aggression. In the post, the exchange’s chief legal officer Paul Grewal acknowledged that while Coinbase’s compliance program might not be perfect, it is doing its bit in helping ensure compliance to imposed financial and economic penalties. He explained that via its multi-layered, global sanctions program, Coinbase is abl...
