ICYMI - Last week in crypto: A healthy rivalry ⚔️
Happy new month, faves!
It was a green week for all as Binance announced it is close to unlocking the identity of actors behind the $570 million hack on its cross-chain, Reddit NFTs sold for an all-time-high amassing $4.1 million and the English Premier League agreed a $35 million NFT deal with SoRare. Also, tech giants Apple publishes new 30% NFT tax rule on its App store and Opensea face rivalry from new NFT marketplace, Blur.
Binance Close to Identifying Hacker behind $570M attack
Binance stated on Monday that it is close to identifying the hacker(s) responsible for the $570 million breach on its cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, earlier in October.
Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, CEO of Binance, said the company had received significant clues from law enforcement officials to identify the hacker(s) who stole two million BNB tokens in a recent interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe."
Over the past year, a number of attacks have targeted cross-chain bridge vulnerabilities. According to a recent report by Chainalysis, 13 cross-chain bridge attacks totaling $2 billion in cryptocurrency were largely committed in 2022. CZ claimed that as a result, the team is "following" the bad guys and working to identify the offender (s).
“We’re still actually chasing … helping [authorities] to chase the bad players, working with law enforcement around the globe. Working with law enforcement is one of the ways that we can try to make the space safe. Actually, in this particular instant, law enforcement gave us some tips on who they think it might be. So we’re actually narrowing down.”
According to the most recent data from the executive, the BNB blockchain was able to stop the hacker from taking the majority of the targeted funds by freezing 80% to 90% of them. He continued by saying that the real loss was "far smaller" and that Binance still had control over "the great majority of the assets."
Cross-Bridge Hacks on the rise…
In essence, cross-chain bridges make it easier for consumers to transfer crypto assets between chains. These offer a popular solution to address the problems that multichain scalability faces. However, given the difficulty of creating and later auditing them as well as the significant sums of money trapped in their smart contracts, fraudsters have been attracted to the space.
According to Token Terminal's most recent research, cross-chain bridges are the weakest spot in the space and are responsible for almost 50% of exploits in decentralized finance (DeFi). More than $2.5 billion in cross-chain bridge thefts during the previous two years, according to the crypto data source.
While cross-chain bridges built using the Cosmos Inter-Blockchain Communications (IBC) protocol have mainly been successful in preventing such attacks, the same cannot be said for those built using blockchains powered by the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
In fact, the bulk of cross-change vulnerabilities so far have taken place on EVM blockchains, including the Nomad bridge hack, the Wormhole token bridge hack, and the Axie Infinity Ronin bridge hack.
Reddit NFT trading volume hits all-time high at $4.1 million
The trading volume of Reddit non-fungible token (NFT) avatars surpassed $1.5 million last week, according to statistics from Polygon and Dune Analytics. The rapid increase accounts for more than one-third of the collection's $4.1 million in total trading volume since its inception. At the same time, 3,780 digital collectibles marked a new all-time high in the daily sales volume of Reddit NFTs.
Independent artists allowed to design Reddit avatars, which are then minted as NFTs on the Polygon blockchain. Such treasures are available for purchase on Vault, Reddit's cryptocurrency wallet. When users post information on the well-known social networking site, they can then put them on and show them as profile images.
The NFTs can be bought and traded on secondary marketplaces like OpenSea after being purchased. Some collections receive few to no bids, while others have floor prices above $2,000 instead. As at the time of writing, the highest sale price for a Reddit NFT is as much as $24,149 (18 Ether).
More than 2.9 million collector avatars have been produced since their inception in July. Accordingly, there are currently 2.8 million wallets holding Reddit NFTs in total. However, the supply of the collection has not increased proportionally, with only a few thousand NFTs being produced daily as opposed to the record daily rate of almost 200,000 NFTs in late August.
The project was first envisioned by Reddit as a way to enable artists to produce NFT artwork and earn money from their collections on NFT marketplaces. According to data so far, royalties from the secondary market sales of the NFTs have brought in more than $60,000 for the artists.
Apple publish New Rules featuring 30% 'tax' on NFTs and geo-limit exchanges
For the first time, technology powerhouse Apple has defined explicit guidelines for nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in its App Store policies, which also include additional information about NFTs and cryptocurrency exchanges.
The new regulations define when a cryptocurrency exchange app may be published and establish how NFT purchases will be taxed as well as what they may and may not be used for.
You can purchase NFTs within the Apple Store, but NFTs obtained elsewhere may not be used for anything other than viewing, according to updated App Store standards released on October 24.
Additionally, it permits NFT-related services like "minting, listing, and transferring" to be "sold and sold" through applications using in-app purchases.
The tech corporation is making sure that every NFT purchase is made in-app, however this appears to be an additional effort to enforce its NFT "Apple tax," which includes in-app NFT sales in its usual 30% commission rate on all purchases.
"Buttons, external links, or other calls to action" that would allow customers to avoid app-store commissions when buying NFTs won't be permitted in apps. Additionally, it forbids the use of techniques "such as [...] QR codes, cryptocurrencies, and cryptocurrency wallets" by apps that might be used to unlock content or functionality.
The rules were implemented despite complaints that the company's 30% fee on NFT sales made through NFT marketplace apps like OpenSea or Magic Eden was "grotesquely pricey" when compared to the typical 2.5% commission on NFT purchases.
Magic Eden after learning about the policy, claimed it deleted its service from the App Store. Also, other NFT markets have reduced the functionality of their applications so that users can only browse and view their own NFTs.
Apple's policies prohibit utilizing cryptocurrency for in-app purchases and only permit the use of fiat money and "valid payment methods" like debit or credit cards.
The updated rules do not alter Apple's current stance on cryptocurrency trading applications offered by exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, where trades are exempt from the 30% "Apple tax."
To make it clear that crypto exchange apps can only be featured in their app in "countries or regions where the app has necessary licensing."
English Premier League Agrees $35M NFT deal with Sorare
According to Sky News, the Ethereum blockchain-based fantasy soccer game Sorare is in talks to strike a nearly $35 million, or 30 million British pounds, NFT contract with the premier English men's professional soccer league, the English Premier League (EPL).
In the trading card game Sorare, players build and manage teams by buying, selling, and trading NFTs player cards. The team can then participate in competitions and score in-game points based on how well the associated players actually perform on the field.
On October 28, the EPL held talks with its 20 clubs over the rumored multi-year contract. The agreement reached is said to center on still pictures of EPL players who have been allocated to NFTs, which of course will allow fans to purchase, possess, and probably trade these players.
It was reported in March that the EPL hired blockchain company ConsenSys for an NFT deal that was reportedly worth more than $300 million. Nevertheless, according to Sky News, a decline in NFT prices forced ConsenSys to renegotiate the agreement's price in order to make Sorare's offer more appealing to the league.
According to reports, the EPL and blockchain company Dapper Labs are also in talks about a separate agreement.
New NFT market Blur rivals OpenSea in 24-hour trading volume
According to Dune statistics, the new NFT marketplace and aggregator Blur reached a record high of 1,610 Ether (about $2.5 Million) in 24-hour trade volume on October 26, trailing only the largest marketplace, OpenSea.
On that particular day, it outperformed its competitors LooksRare and X2Y2 in terms of market share, and it celebrated the achievement on Twitter.
"In the last 24 hours Blur became the #2 NFT marketplace by volume (excluding wash trades)! Blur is also the #1 aggregator.
This is a huge win for the entire Blur community who will eventually be majority owners of Blur. It's only day 7 and we're just getting started!", the official Twitter account (@Blur_io) shared.
On October 19, the beta version of the Ethereum-based platform became live, and anybody who had traded NFTs in the previous six months received an airdrop of the site's native currency, BLUR. It claims to cater to "pro traders" and offers optional royalties in addition to no trading expenses.
The same day, NFT marketplace X2Y2 tweeted that it wanted Blur "to stop using our listings on your website" before blocking Blur from its platform for allegedly using numerous application programming interface (API) keys in violation of the agreements.
Terra's Do Kwon slammed Yet Another Lawsuit
A class action lawsuit for $57 million has been filed against Do Kwon and other TerraUSD project participants by irate investors.
Another legal dispute between Do Kwon and accomplices could result in severe civil penalties.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Kwon is facing a class action lawsuit on behalf of investors who lost $57 million as a result of TerraUSD stablecoin's demise. These investors are now seeking aggravated damages in addition to their lost money.
According to the class action lawsuit, Kwon and others falsely projected the stability of TerraUSD's pricing. In the lawsuit's wording, investors "believed that [TerraUSD] would be a token that was stable by design [and] whose price would always be pegged to the US Dollar."
Investors also thought that the stablecoin would provide "excellent APY returns" when staked in Terraform Labs' lending and borrowing platform, Anchor Protocol.
The TerraUSD stablecoin's price mechanism, however, broke down in May, leading the asset to lose its peg to the US dollar and almost all of its market value.
According to the lawsuit, despite assertions to the contrary, TerraUSD was not "stable by design," was unable to keep its price peg, and was unable to make up for losses.
It further claims that after the project's swap mechanism was stopped in May, token holders were unable to exchange TerraUSD for an equivalent number of Luna.
Finally, it asserts that Anchor did not deliver the promised sustainable 20% yield and was not "principal assured."
One of many Lawsuits
A Terraform Labs official told the publication that no wrongdoing had occurred. By arguing that there is a "fundamental difference between a public market occurrence and fraud," she disregarded TerraUSD's collapse and noted that Terra's hazards were widely understood.
One of Singapore's "Big Four" legal firms, Drew & Napier, is in charge of the lawsuit. More than 350 investors, including those from Singapore, Australia, and Spain, are involved.
Do Kwon, the CEO of Terraform Labs, as well as Daniel Hyunsung Shin and Nikolaos Alexandros Platias are named as defendants. Other defendants include Terraform Labs and the Luna Foundation Guard.
There are other lawsuits against the project and its participants in addition to the recently reported one. The firms Bragar Eagel and Squire, Scott+Scott, and Grant & Eisenhofer are among those bringing fresh class action lawsuits against Kwon and others.
In South Korea, Kwon is also accused of crime. Interpol attempted to impede Kwon's overseas travel by issuing a red alert on him in September. His whereabouts remain unknown.
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