NFTs
Amid P2E downturn, Sky Mavis turns to user-generated content for Axie Infinity
On Tuesday, Sky Mavis, creator of the popular fantasy monster-battle nonfungible token (NFT) game Axie Infinity, announced that it had accepted the first user-created projects in its Axie Infinity Builders Program. Out of 2,000 applications submitted, just 12 were selected for the Builders Program. Among the many perks, chosen teams will receive a minimum $10,000 grant — denominated in Axie Infinity’s governance token, Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) — to fund project development. They will also receive permission to monetize their game using the Axie Infinity brand with a revenue-share model. Notable projects include Across Lunacia, a platforming adventure for Axie NFTs, and Mech Infinity, a battle royale game involving Axies and their unique abilities. Philip La, game product lead at Ax...
eBay drops first NFT collection to non-crypto mainstream buyers
E-commerce giant eBay has officially launched its first NFT drop, with a series of tokenized collectibles featuring National Hockey League (NHL) legend Wayne Gretsky going live on May 23. The NFT collection depicts animated versions of Gretsky that were inspired by Sports Illustrated magazine covers. They come in four different tiers of rarity including green at 299 editions per token, gold at 199, platinum at 99, and diamond at 15. The collection is up for sale on eBay’s marketplace now, however, the limited edition diamond, platinum, and gold tiers worth $1,500, $100, and $25 apiece have already sold out. According to the announcement from eBay, the collection was developed in partnership with environmentally focused NFT platform OneOf, which supports multiple “energy-efficient blockchai...
Inside Track: Creator Power, Spatial Audio & the Metaverse Dominate Music Biz 2022
For the first time since the onset of the pandemic, the Music Biz conference happened in person in Nashville this month, bringing together industry figures from across the globe to banter about the various topics facing the business after two years of relying on tech and streaming to connect an increasingly-fractured landscape. One conversation that seemed to permeate both panels and interpersonal conversations at the convention was the expanding role of artists in their own marketing and release strategy, whether they are signed to a major or not. During panels like “The Future of the Artist Deal” and “Navigating New Strategies,” speakers waxed near-philosophical on the improved standing of artists in advocating on their own behalf, while also examining the pitfalls that come from this mo...
Universal Music Partners With LimeWire 2.0 for Use of Its NFT Marketplace
LimeWire has signed a new partnership with Universal Music Group that will allow the record giant’s artists to use the NFT marketplace to sell and market music-focused NFTs, it was announced on Tuesday (May 17). This marks the first major-label partnership for the newly rebooted LimeWire, which relaunched as an NFT marketplace in March. Under the partnership, UMG will provide content licenses to LimeWire, enabling the marketplace to partner with UMG artists to sell audio recordings, audiovisual content, artwork, bonus tracks and more directly to fans. Collectibles from these artists can be purchased with a credit card, and the LimeWire platform will handle gas fees and “technical hurdles on behalf of its users,” according to a press release. Originally founded as a peer-to-peer file-sharin...
Twitch co-founder raises $24M for Web3 gaming firm Metatheory
Web3 gaming and entertainment company Metatheory founded by Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin has raised $24 million in a Series A funding round on Monday. The round was led by crypto capital venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Pantera Capital, the venture arm of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, FTX Ventures, and other venture firms, according to the announcement. Metatheory was launched in November 2021 around one year after Lin left Twitch, where he wrote in a Medium article at the time that he was creating the gaming company and also a blockchain game called DuskBreakers. Lin was quoted in this week’s announcement as saying: “Building immersive digital experiences has always been a passion of mine, and after stepping away from Twitch to explore what’s next in...
More than a third of AMC online payments are crypto or digital: CEO
AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron stated that crypto along with several other digital payment methods recently accounted for 35% of its online payments. The popular cinema chain has gradually been working on various crypto adoption plays after first rolling out online payment support for Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC) in November. Last month it also added support for Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) payments via the AMC Theatres mobile app. Speaking as part of the firm’s 2022 Q1 earnings call on May 9, Aron emphasized that the firm’s plunge into crypto has not only been met with much “fanfare” but also opened up several payment rails that it had previously explored: “The same IT programming that was required for us to accept cryptocurrency also enabled us t...
Ethereum burning spikes to new high on Yuga Labs’ NFT hype
The burning rate of Ethereum has spiked to new all-time high (ATH) levels following the heavily anticipated sale of tokenized land plots in Yuga Labs’ upcoming Metaverse project the “Otherside.” Yuga Labs, the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), sold 55,000 virtual land nonfungible tokens (NFTs) dubbed “Otherdeeds” on Sunday. The overwhelming demand for the tokens saw Ethereum gas fees shoot up so high that a handful of users paid as high as 2.6 Ether (ETH), or $7,400 at the time of writing, to 5 ETH, or $14,270, just to get their transactions through. A base fee of ETH is burned during each transaction on the network following the implementation of the London hard fork, or EIP-1559 upgrade, last year. According to data compiled from Glassnode and Data Always, nearly 70,000 E...
Moonbirds fly into NFT top spot with $290M sold in four days
The freshly launched Ethereum-based Moonbirds NFT project is soaring to the top of the trade volume charts after generating $290 million worth of sales in just four days. There are 10,000 computer-generated pixel owl avatar NFTs in total, which were promptly sold out on April 16 for a mint price of 2.5 Ether (ETH) per NFT, or $7,700 at current prices. The floor price (minimum average sale) has since exploded on secondary markets, with OpenSea currently showing a hefty sum of 18.45 ETH ($56,800). BLOOD MOON RISING #moonbirds pic.twitter.com/Jm6bqBVuVF — beeple (@beeple) April 16, 2022 According to data from CryptoSlam, the project has generated more than $289.9 million worth of secondary sales (figure also includes mint sales). The figure places the project as the top-selling NFT collection...
MetaMask warns Apple users over iCloud phishing attacks
ConsenSys-owned crypto wallet provider MetaMask has sent out a warning to the community regarding Apple iCloud phishing attacks. The security issue for iPhone, Mac, and iPad users is related to default device settings which see a user’s seed phrase or “password-encrypted MetaMask vault” stored on the iCloud if the user has enabled automatic backups for their app data. In a Twitter thread posted on April 18, MetaMask noted that users run the risk of losing their funds if their Apple password “isn’t strong enough” and an attacker is able to phish their account credentials. To fix the issue, users can disable automatic iCloud backups for MetaMask as detailed: If you have enabled iCloud backup for app data, this will include your password-encrypted MetaMask vault. If your password isn’t s...
Punk6529 unveils Metaverse museum district: ‘Most high-end art NFTs ever’
Popular NFT collector “punk6529” today unveiled an ambitious open Metaverse project that is looking to attract 100 million users. The self-funded project is dubbed “OM” and aims to be an open platform that is built and shared by the community. The broader vision for the project is to launch 10 self-governing cities with a max population of 10 million each. The museum district of the first city (Genesis City) was launched in alpha mode earlier today, with punk6529 bullishly telling their 323,200 Twitter followers that it might be “the most high-end art NFTs ever displayed in one place.” A promo video for OM shows a long list of NFTs from top projects such as CryptoPunks, Tyler Hobbs’ Fidenza collection, Bored Ape Yacht Club and Art Blocks. At this stage, there are 2000 NFTs on display that ...
Amazon CEO expresses optimism about the future of cryptocurrencies and NFTs
Speaking during an interview with CNBC after releasing his first shareholder letter as the new CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy said that while he does not own any cryptocurrencies or nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, he is optimistic about the outlook of the industry. Jassy stated: “We’re not probably close to adding crypto as a payment mechanism in our retail business, but I do believe over time that you’ll see crypto become bigger. I expect that NFTs will continue to grow very significantly.” Specifically, regarding the sale of NFTs by Amazon, Jassy claimed that “it’s possible down the road on the platform.” Last November, Cointelegraph reported that Amazon was hiring a Financial Services Specialist who “understands the overall cryptocurrency an...
Researchers find security flaw in Rarible: Users could have lost all their NFTs
The research arm of cyber security software firm Check Point said it identified a vulnerability in the Rarible NFT marketplace that could have seen many of its roughly two million active monthly users lose their NFTs in a single transaction. Check Point is a multinational IT security firm that was founded in Ramat Gan, Israel in 1993 and also claimed to have spotted issues relating to malicious airdrops on OpenSea back in October 2021. According to documents shared with Cointelegraph, Check Point Research (CPR) recently discovered that malicious actors could send users a dubious link to an NFT that executes JavaScript code after clicking that “attempts to send a setApprovalForAll request to the victim.” If the link is clicked, the user grants full access to their wallets on Rarible. CPR st...
