Table of Contents
Bitcoin News:2nd November 2021
- Sorare CEO shares bold vision on NFTs during Web Summit 2021 opening night.
- Jungle Freaks Tank as Artist’s Racist Cartoons Surface
- Squid Game cryptocurrency collapses in apparent scam
- Analyst says Ethereum is ‘massively undervalued,’ despite recent ATH
- Avalanche creates $200 million fund to lure top crypto devs
- Ethereum NFT Metaverse Game The Sandbox Raises $93 Million
- Coinbase acquires Indian AI startup to improve customer service
- Aussie crypto companies keen to embrace regulations says senator
Sorare CEO shares bold vision on NFTs during Web Summit 2021 opening night.
The co-founder of the French tech unicorn discussed major innovations that could come as a result of developments in the NFTs industry.
The biggest tech conference in the world, Web Summit 2021, began on Monday in Lisbon, Portugal, and will end on Thursday. “My aim is for Lisbon to be the world’s centre of invention,” stated Carlos Moedas, the mayor of Lisbon, in his opening remarks. In the meantime, Portugal’s finance minister, Joo Leo, said:
“Portugal is the place to live, to invest, to do business, and to do so in a manner which is open to difference, tolerant and multicultural.”
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, Black Lives Matter co-founder Ayo Tometi, and Nicholas Julia, co-founder and CEO of French nonfungible token (NFT) fantasy gaming business Sorare, were among the notable guest speakers.
NFTs are digital certificates of ownership that can be used to represent artwork, photos, films, music, and other types of media. They’re kept in digital wallets, and the assets themselves can be kept on-chain or off-chain, depending on their size. With digital player cards produced as NFTs, Sorare allows gamers to control their own soccer, or football, teams. These cards are available for purchase, sale, and transfer.
Julia stated the following when questioned about the future of the NFT industry in the next five to ten years:
“NFTs will be the underlying technology for everything of value on the web. It could be monetary value or it could be personal value. I was mentioning your identity earlier on, so that’s something an NFT could carry for you on the web. It’s going to be invisible.”
Sorare, which was founded in Paris three years ago, has grown in value from $270 million to $4.3 billion. SoftBank, a Japanese multinational conglomerate, sponsored the company’s most recent round of funding in September. According to Julia, half a million people joined the platform without being marketed to. Sorare is presently partnered with over 200 football clubs around the world. Sorares cards’ cumulative trade volume has topped 50,200 Ether, according to the company’s profile on NFT marketplace OpenSea (ETH).
Sorare, on the other hand, wants to go beyond NFTs for gaming. In this regard, Julia made the following statement:
“We want people to feel the benefits of it, that you truly own your digital good, that you can move it, and so on without having the friction of crypto that most of the crypto products have today — it’s complicated. I see that it’s a technology that’s going to underpin everything of value on the web.”
Jungle Freaks Tank as Artist’s Racist Cartoons Surface
The developers have expressed regret, but they intend to continue working on the project.
The value of the popular NFT project Jungle Freaks plummeted today following the discovery of frightening cartoons supposedly drawn by its artist, George Trosley, in the past. The artist’s son appeared to confirm their validity in a Discord message.
Today, the value of George Trosley’s popular NFT project Jungle Freaks plummeted after racist cartoons reportedly produced by Trosley in the 1970s surfaced on Twitter.
The news appears to be the main reason for the Jungle Freaks floor price dropping from 1.3 ETH to less than 0.4 ETH. The project had 10,000 “Freaks” and was the sixth-largest NFT project on OpenSea by volume at the time of writing. It went live around a month ago.
The sell-off could also be fueled by celebrity social media influence. Last night, actor and co-founder of SpectreVision, Elijah Wood, tweeted that he had sold his Jungle Freaks owing to Trosley’s previous frightening cartoons, stating that he “wholly denounce[d] any form of bigotry.”
George Trosley’s son, a co-leader of the project, published a statement on the Jungle Freak Discord (and later on Twitter) recognising that “the cartoons [his] father created are disgusting” and that “the Jungle Freaks do not endorse or condone racism in any manner.” “My father has indicated to me how humiliated he is for the cartoons many have seen,” Trosley’s son continued. The statement concludes by assuring the community that the project will not be abandoned.
The Trosleys could not be reached for comment right away.
The Jungle Freaks project takes place in 2077 and features 10,000 hand-drawn “genetically enhanced” gorilla regime Freaks. These gorillas are being hunted by zombies, and humanity has vanished.
The project has had other problems recently as well, with its Discord channel being hacked by scammers just a few days ago. Victims of the hoax, on the other hand, were compensated.
Moreover the squid game series, as well as token, have been in the news lately, the only difference is being famous and infamous, we coinmonks already warned you all about these shitcoins didn’t we? We public the warnings via medium, we’ve done it multiple times, do follow them.
Well a literal scam with so many people hurts but, is true. I also told y’all that it was fishy that people couldn’t sell their tokens.
Squid Game cryptocurrency collapses in apparent scam
Squid token’s website and social accounts disappear after price jumped more than 310,000% in value and then crashed
On Monday, the value of a cryptocurrency inspired by the hit Netflix series Squid Game plummeted less than two weeks after investors were able to purchase tokens.
Squid lost all of its value after Twitter alerted and briefly blocked the cryptocurrency’s account due to “suspicious conduct” after it jumped more than 310,000 percent in value as of Sunday night.
The token’s value had risen to $2,856 just before it crashed. Squid’s website and social media profiles have vanished, as has a white paper detailing the coin.
The coin was made available for purchase on October 20th with the intention of serving as a pay-to-play token for an online game, inspired on Squid Game, a hit show in which deeply indebted people play deadly versions of children’s games for cash.
The game was supposed to be live in November, and its organisers promised that champions would get more Squid tokens. However, even as the cryptocurrency’s price soared last week, many people speculated that the token could be a scam.
According to various accounts, investors were having problems selling their tokens, and the cryptocurrency’s white paper was riddled with grammatical flaws.
According to Gizmodo, the cryptocurrency’s developers might have gained as much as $2.1 million after the token’s crash.
Before the crash, CoinMarketCap, a cryptocurrency price-tracking website, warned potential buyers of the cryptocurrency’s potentially fraudulent nature, advising them to “do your own due diligence and exercise caution while trading,” as well as warning them that investors were having trouble selling their tokens.
“I lost everything I had in this project,” an unnamed Squid investor told CoinMarketCap after spending $5,000 in the coin.
On 30th October we coinmonks published some articles
Where the writer informed people that:
I am not sure this particular SQUID token has anything to do with the the Squid Games TV show. Nonetheless, you cannot deny that its name can and probably will capitalize on the trend. In fact, it makes more sense that it aligns with the Ocean theme of the AutoShark DeFi platform which
apparently says means are scams.
Analyst says Ethereum is ‘massively undervalued,’ despite recent ATH
Ethereum recently surpassed $4,440 as its all-time high. At the time of publication, ETH was still hovering around $4,300. While many believe these to be strong levels, analyst Lark Davis stated in his most recent podcast that Ethereum is severely undervalued.
Davis made some crucial insights in the context of Ethereum’s use case on social media networks. Reddit’s community coins were launched on the Ethereum platform not long ago.
Reddit recently hinted about the launch of NFT. Davis stated that the Ethereum platform is now likely to be used by the company’s “430 million monthly active users” for its launch. Similarly, he believes Twitter’s NFT platform will need to “allow Ethereum-based verification.”
Let’s not forget that TikTok has already released its creator-led NFT collection on the second-generation blockchain, with billions of users. According to Davis, another similar announcement could come from Facebook. For its next metaverse plans, the platform with “2.8 billion monthly active users” may pursue a “multichain” strategy.
However, Facebook’s NFT plans may give Ethereum a boost once more. Furthermore, from the perspective of Ethereum, the general use of Facebook’s Novi wallet in the future is something that should be prioritised.
The debut of Bitcoin-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has been hailed as an industry-wide achievement. Naturally, Davis and other investors anticipate the launch of an ETH ETF in the near future. It’s worth noting that both Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs are now legal in Canada. It might be the next big thing in the US market, according to Davis.
According to CoinShares’ weekly report, Ethereum had outflows for the third week in a row, reaching $1.4 million as of October 25. Regardless of the profit-taking, ETH’s institutional interest remains high.
Institutions are even favouring Ethereum over Bitcoin, according to JP Morgan analysts. A “variety of various actors from public enterprises to private funds, family offices, and so on” are looking at Ethereum as an investable asset, according to Davis.
Furthermore, as demand has increased, the available supply of Ethereum on central exchanges has decreased by 18%, or close to 4 million ETH. And it’s just been five months since this trend began.
In addition, according to a report, Ethereum’s current burn rate following the London hard fork is roughly 5 ETH/min. Ethereum’s POS Merge, which has burned over 700,000 tokens, is likewise not far behind its Altair upgrade. According to Davis, mining rewards are dwindling.
“Ethereum is expected to have a negative supply rate of roughly 2% each year.”
However, Goldman Sachs’ Bernhard Rzymelka recently projected that the price of ETH would double by the end of the year.
Avalanche creates $200 million fund to lure top crypto devs
The Avalanche Foundation has announced “Blizzard,” a fund that will give developers that build on the Avalanche (AVAX) network more than $200 million in incentives.
The fund will give liquidity to early-stage projects on Avalanche that are developing decentralised finance (DeFi) applications, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and other products.
Avalanche is a Proof-of-Stake network that began operations in September of 2020. Developers can move decentralised applications from Ethereum to the network thanks to Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility. Tether, a prominent stablecoin issuer, and SushiSwap, a popular DEX, are among the more than 320 projects now building on the network.
The Avalanche Foundation, Ava Labs, Polychain Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Dragonfly Capital, and CMS Holdings are among Blizzard’s contributors, according to a Nov. 1 release.
DeFi, enterprise applications, NFTs, and culture applications will be prioritised by Blizzard across the Avalanche ecosystem. The cash will be utilised to fund stock investments, token purchases, collaboration activities, technology development, and business development.Builders inside the ecosystem would be granted continuing support.
Ava Labs president John Wu stated:
“Blizzard is entering the Avalanche community at a pivotal moment, where this influx of users and activity demands constant innovation in new applications and use cases on the platform.”
With a staked capitalization of $14 billion and 56 percent of its supply staked, Avalanche is the sixth largest proof-of-stake network.
According to DefiLlama, Avalanche is the fifth-largest network, with a total value locked of $8.5 billion and a TVL of $2,624 million, up from $312 million in August.
According to CoinGecko, AVAX is down around 18 percent from its all-time high of $79.31 on September 23rd, and is currently trading for $64.80.
Ethereum NFT Metaverse Game The Sandbox Raises $93 Million
The Sandbox continues its rally, with SAND rising 244% this week on metaverse hype and news of a fresh $93 million funding round.
Following Facebook’s increased push into the space—including rebranding
its parent company as “Meta”—and rising value for metaverse-related crypto tokens, excitement over the impending metaverse may be at an all-time high. One of the most eagerly awaited metaverse games has just received significant financing ahead of its release.
The Sandbox, an Animoca Brands subsidiary, announced today that it has raised $93 million in a Series B investment spearheaded by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. The Japanese firm has been aggressively investing in NFT and crypto in recent months, spearheading Sorare’s $680 million raise in September and Digital Currency Group’s $700 million raise last week.
Samsung Next, Galaxy Interactive, True Global Ventures, Liberty City Ventures, LG Technology Ventures, mobile game producer Com2us, and many other companies took part in the Series B financing.
Users own plots of land represented as NFTs, as well as NFTs for characters and other goods, in the Sandbox, an Ethereum-based shared online environment. These LAND plots can be personalised and developed with interactive game experiences that can be marketed to generate revenue for their owners.
The game isn’t ready yet; an alpha testing version will be released before the end of the year. According to the startup, The Sandbox has already produced $144 million in NFT sales, with 12,000 unique LAND plot owners and 500,000 total users who have linked a crypto wallet to the site.
Along with the money, The Sandbox has added new members to its advisory board, including Guy Oseary, a seasoned music manager and digital investor who is directing Bored Ape Yacht Club’s expansion into other entertainment initiatives, and Nicholas Adler, Snoop Dogg’s manager and brand curator. Former Riot Games CPO Thomas Vu and FreshPlanet co-founder Mathieu Nouzareth are among the newcomers.
The Sandbox’s SAND token, like Decentraland’s MANA token, has seen a huge increase in value over the last week, fueled by growing interest in Facebook’s metaverse ideas. SAND hit a new all-time high of $3.33 after the investment announcement today.
SAND is currently trading at $2.79 per token, up 244 percent in the previous week, according to CoinGecko.
Coinbase acquires Indian AI startup to improve customer service
Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, is acquiring a new business in India in order to improve its client service,
Agara, an artificial intelligence-enabled support platform with operations in India and the United States, was acquired by Coinbase on Tuesday.
Coinbase’s customer service skills will be expanded and automated as a result of the acquisition, which will provide additional machine learning and natural language processing technologies to the company’s engineering staff. The agreement also affirms the company’s plan to expand its India-based IT hub.
According to TechCrunch, the acquisition of Agara will cost Coinbase between $40 million and $50 million, according to anonymous sources familiar with the situation. The acquisition is expected to finalise later this year, according to reports.
Agara was founded in 2017 with the goal of improving user experience through machine learning and natural language processing. Agara, which employs roughly 40 people, is said to have landed several big clients, including Salesforce, a cloud-based software company, and Shopify, a significant e-commerce platform.
Agara’s IT staff will join Coinbase as part of the transaction, according to Pankaj Gupta, Coinbase’s head of operations in India. Gupta, an Agara co-founder, believes the acquisition will benefit both Agara and Coinbase. “It’s incredible to see my worlds collide here with Agara,” he said, referring to the firm he co-founded in early 2017 before leaving to join Google.
Abhimanyu, co-founder and CEO of Agara, highlighted that the company has also been able to integrate its tech stack into phone-based client interactions. “Phone calls are one of the more sophisticated things we do.” We’ve been attempting to automate as much as possible, if not all, of the phone-based service,” he added.
Coinbase’s latest attempt to improve its user experience comes as the business continues to struggle with providing adequate customer support. Coinbase consumers reportedly lambasted the company’s new phone support line in mid-October, alleging it was a “joke.” In August, the exchange was chastised for poor customer support after consumers complained about hacked accounts and lost funds.
Aussie crypto companies keen to embrace regulations says senator
Senator Andrew Bragg of New South Wales has stated that strong rules will “provide credibility and validity” to Australia’s emerging digital asset sector.
The head of the Senate Committee on Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre, speaking to local publication Finder on November 2, stated that the country’s crypto sector has shown a readiness to embrace additional regulatory monitoring in order to achieve mainstream credibility.
Senator Bragg stated, “To my surprise, I’ve never seen an industry so eager for regulation.”
“Almost everyone I’ve spoken to in this industry understood that regulation would bring credibility and validity to this sector.”
Bragg added that he expects new crypto sector laws to be implemented in Australia over the next 12 months.
Bragg’s remarks follow the release of his senate committee’s ‘Crypto Report’ last month.
The report made 12 recommendations aimed at addressing key issues facing the cryptocurrency industry, including a tax break for crypto miners who use renewable energy, new crypto exchange licences, an overhaul of capital gains tax in decentralised finance (DeFi), and new laws governing decentralised autonomous organisations (DAO),
The letter also stated that the existing lack of legislative clarity in the area of digital assets “creates uncertainty for project developers, enterprises, investors, and consumers.”
According to Bragg, the suggestions will allow Australia to compete with major blockchain and crypto jurisdictions such as Singapore, the United States, and the United Kingdom in the blockchain and crypto businesses.
In addition to this, According to surveys, over 25% of Australians currently hold or have previously held cryptocurrencies, making Australia one of the largest per capita consumers of cryptocurrencies.
Swyftx informed the Committee that “bringing digital assets inside a tailored and sensible regulatory framework is a far better answer than forcing consumers to operate outside of it with unregulated, foreign suppliers.”
According to the report, Blockchain Australia also discussed the necessity for Australia to implement adequate regulatory reform in order to keep up with other countries.
The industry association stated, “Australia is falling behind overseas jurisdictions in the establishment of a fit-for-purpose crypto-asset framework.”
Read Yesterday’s news here.
