Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden has pledged to refund all users who were duped into purchasing fake NFTs on its website as a result of an exploit. In a Jan. 4 statement, the company said a bug in its newly deployed "activity indexer" for its Snappy Marketplace and Pro Trade tools essentially allowed fake NFTs to skirt verification and get listed alongside genuine NFT collections. Magic Eden said the exploit led to 25 fraudulent NFTs sold across four collections in the last 24 hours but is currently confirming whether additional NFTs were affected beyond the last day. Two of …

Celebrities had a shaky year promoting crypto firms and projects throughout 2022. Many found themselves named in lawsuits over their alleged promotion of since-failed projects, while others have been relentlessly mocked on social media for their involvement in the first place. From movie stars to television actors, sports stars to musicians, many celebrities may be regretting their endorsement deals last year, though that’s not to say that there haven’t been exceptions. Who got burned? In February last year, American comedian Larry David, who co-created the television series Seinfeld, appeared in a Super Bowl commercial for now-defunct crypto exchange FTX that …

NFT Influencer CryptoNovo announced on Jan 4. that they have fallen victim to a cyberattack and lost two cryptopunks. The post on Twitter says “I just got hacked!!! Are you kidding me!?!” and includes a screenshot from OpenSea displaying two cryptopunks being transferred to another address. I just got hacked!!! Are you kidding me!?! pic.twitter.com/r1xS0mhD6P — CryptoNovo (@CryptoNovo311) January 4, 2023 The two cryptopunks were immediately sold by the attacker, one for 70 ETH (worth an equivalent $88,434 at time of publication) and the other for 199 ETH ($251,404). This implies that CryptoNovo lost over $300K worth of cryptopunks in …

Mainstream hype for the nonfungible token (NFT) market cooled down significantly in 2022, but that didn’t stop a host of popular and wealthy figures from stinking up the space with dreadful collections last year. In the 2022 edition of the worst influencer and celebrity NFT cash grabs, Cointelegraph takes a look at four projects seemingly designed to milk capital out of their fans pockets, while delivering very little. Tai Lopez — OG (Original Garage) Social Club First on the list is the oddball entrepreneur Tai Lopez, best known for his cheesy marketing campaigns that used to plague YouTube not so …

In this week’s newsletter, read about how nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in the Magic Eden marketplace showed “unsavory images.” Read about Final Fantasy developer Square Enix’s aggressive investments in blockchain gaming and how play-to-earn (P2E) will transition from the growth phase to maturation. In other news, check out metaverse developments throughout 2022. And don’t forget this week’s Nifty News featuring Solana NFTs’ surge in trading volume. ‘WTH did I just witness?’ Magic Eden shows porn after hosting service hacked Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden had recently assured its users that their NFTs are safe after pornographic images were spotted in its …

DNP3, a streamer and founder of several crypto projects like The charity-focused crypto CluCoin, The Goobers NFT and the metaverse platform Gridcraft Network has admitted to losing investor funds through gambling. In a tweet, the nonfungible token (NFT) project founder talked about his gambling addiction and issued a public apology. I’m sorry. Read: https://t.co/RKM1wYggnC — DNP3 (@DNPthree) January 3, 2023 The Twitch streamer said that he got "incredibly addicted" to gambling in the last year. Eventually, the Twitch streamer claimed that he lost everything. He wrote: “In addition to my own life savings, I also irresponsibly used investor funds to …

Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden had to assure users their NFTs “are safe” after a spate of pornographic images littered its platform on Jan. 3. In a Jan. 3 Twitter post the Solana-based NFT marketplace told its users it “has not been hacked” and the “unsavory images” were the result of its third-party image hosting provider being “compromised.” According to Jan. 3 reports on Twitter from Magic Eden users, loading into a collection’s page would sometimes temporarily flash a pornographic image in place of the NFT thumbnail. Yo @MagicEden wtf is this pic.twitter.com/Xums9EZtm6 — Fede (@fedeonekenoby) January 3, 2023 …

Final Fantasy creator Square Enix is set to double down on blockchain game development despite turbulence in the crypto market, according to a Jan. 1 letter from the company's president, Yosuke Matsuda. The letter, titled “A New Year’s Letter from the President,” aimed to recap the company’s major accomplishments in 2022 and explain its plans for 2023. Out of 15 paragraphs, seven were about blockchain gaming, showing that blockchain gaming is a major focus of the company’s investing strategy going forward. ⚔An introduction to SYMBIOGENESIS ①⚔ Starting from today we'll begin introducing Symbiogenesis, starting from the concept✨ Symbiogenesis is a …

2022 proved to be a fruitful year for Ethereum Name Service, with the platform recording 2.2 million registered domains despite unfavorable market conditions for the cryptocurrency space. According to the service, over 80 percent of the total ENS domains created since the project's inception were registered in 2022. Data from Dune Analytics shows that ENS has around 2.82 million names registered as of Jan. 2, with 630,340 owners of ENS domains. Happy New Year everyone! 2022 was an incredible year for ENS! Over 2.2m ENS names were registered in 2022 (that's 80% of ALL names created) If you're ready for …

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. For DeFi, the last week of 2022 saw another slew of exploits, insider job accusations and exit scam drama. It all started on Christmas, when Defrost Finance, a decentralized leveraged trading platform on the Avalanche blockchain, was exploited by a DeFi flash loan attack causing $12 million in losses. However, the hacker behind the attacks reportedly returned a portion of the funds the next day. Security analytic firm Certik looked into the chain of …

As the hype surrounding play-to-earn (P2E) games and platforms began to dwindle in early 2022, Web3 participants began to emphasize the need for games to be more “fun” and less finance-oriented. In the most recent episode of NFT Steez, Alyssa Expósito and Ray Salmond speak with Aron Beierschmitt, the CEO of Laguna Games and founder of Crypto Unicorns, about the sustainability of P2E-focused blockchain games. For Beierschmitt, the evolution from a play-to-earn to a play-and-earn model suggests that there is still experimentation and maturation to be seen for these games. “Nothing has changed about making games,” said Beierschmitt. But with …

Recognized as one of the most turbulent years for the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry, 2022 has still been vigorous for the metaverse. With over $120 billion invested in the first half of the year alone — according to a McKinsey report — the industry is anything but broken. Some of the most significant partnerships to date were sealed throughout 2022, with even a few unexpected institutions — JP Morgan, for instance — embracing the Web3 revolution despite their proverbial distaste for the decentralization concept. Here’s what you need to know about the influential developments, projects and events that shaped the …