Nifty News: PROOF cancels NFT conference, Bitcoin meme creator cashes in $150K and more

February 21, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Nifty News: PROOF cancels NFT conference, Bitcoin meme creator cashes in 0K and more

The conference known as “Proof of Conference,” slated to run in May, has been canceled due to “less interest than anticipated,” according to co-founder Kevin Rose.

‘Less interest than anticipated’ — PROOF cancels NFT event

Kevin Rose, the co-founder of the nonfungible token (NFT) collection Moonbirds, has confirmed that their flagship conference, “Proof of Conference,” scheduled for May, has been canceled, citing “less interest than anticipated.”

We made a tough decision today, I want to apologize to everyone that planned on making the trip out. Full ETH refunds have been processed, hotels are refundable, and contact us about flights. (details below) https://t.co/tV4ba85648
— KΞVIN R◎SE (,) (@kevinrose) February 20, 2023

The conference was first announced in early November. It was scheduled for May 11 to May 13 in Los Angeles.

However, Rose explained in a Feb. 20 letter to ticket holders that it wasn’t “the right time” for the conference:

“As you know, in the world of NFTs, timing is everything. And today, it’s time for us to recognize that right now isn’t the right time for the PROOF of Conference.”

Rose explained that he and his Proof team considered alternatives, such as opting for a smaller venue in Los Angeles, reducing the scope of the event and lowering ticket prices.

But ultimately, it was best to cancel the whole event, he said.

“After several weeks of sales data, speaking with potential sponsors, and talking to community members, it's clear that there is considerably less interest than anticipated for an event like this right now.”

Rose confirmed that the company is processing Ether (ETH) refunds and that Proof has a claim page for people to submit non-refundable flight cancellations.

*Kevin Rose and the Proof team’s message regarding the cancellation of PROOF of Conference.* *Source. Proof.*

The event would feature Michael “Beeple” Winkelmann — the artist behind the famous NFT that sold for $69 million in March 2021 — Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian; Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow of Yuga Labs ; and NFT entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk — among others.

The announcement comes despite the NFT market soaring in recent months, with January seeing an eight-month high in monthly NFT trading volumes above $1 billion.

Artist paid $150K for Bitcoin wizard meme on Ordinals

The emergence of NFT-like “Ordinals” on Bitcoin over the last month has brought a series of meme images to the network of late, including a famous Bitcoin wizard meme that first made rounds on the Bitcoin subreddit in 2013.

Thanks to Ordinals, the meme artist known as “Mavensbot” has just received 6 Bitcoin (BTC) — worth $150,000 at current prices for his iconic work.

This was made possible after blockchain research analyst Udi Wertheimer and meme-inspired Bitcoin community Taproot Wizard inscribed the wizard meme on Bitcoin to not only “celebrate the 10-year anniversary of his art” but reel in some cash for the creator of the meme, “Mavensbot,” according to Wertheimer:

Short story about how we got NFT mfers to support a historic bitcoin artist with $150,000 via lightning payments, and how bitcoin maxis HATE us for it.

(I know it’s a long tweet but it’s a good story)

Mavensbot (on top in the screenshot below) is the creator of the famous 2013… https://t.co/kPd9IlCaWs pic.twitter.com/wGTegIiDM4
— Udi Wertheimer ‍♂️ (@udiWertheimer) February 21, 2023

Within the first three hours alone, 6 BTC were sent from “NFT enjoyers” to Mavensbot via the Lightning Network.

“Watching this made me really happy. The NFT community that I admire, using the Bitcoin asset and Lightning Network that I believe in, to support an artist whose work means so much to me.”

“You love to see it,” he added.

Taproot Wizards is part of a movement that wants to “make Bitcoin magical again” with magic internet JPEGs inscribed forever on the Bitcoin blockchain.

However, Wertheimer highlighted that not everyone is on board with the whole Ordinals concept — particularly the “Bitcoin maximialists.”

But Wertheimer doubled down, demanding Bitcoin maximalists not to take everything seriously:

“It’s time to go back to the spirit of the 2013 Bitcoin wizard. Playfulness, experimentation, innovation. Not taking ourselves so god damn seriously all the time. HAVING FUN, for Satoshi’s sake. I truly believe that with ordinals we finally have a chance to do this.”

Australian cocktail bar launches NFT membership program

Australian cocktail and NFT connoisseurs have a new venue in Sydney to haunt — one that allows holders of its NFTs access to additional privileges at the bar.

The Sydney-based cocktail bar, Bar Lulu, launched on Feb. 21, along with an NFT members club bar named Cryptolulu.

Based in Sydney, patrons must buy the NFT member club bar on NFT marketplace OpenSea on the Ethereum network to access certain privileges.

*NFT Artist Credit: Arturo Rodriguez and Mark Monfort. Source: Bar Lulu.*

There are three tokens that can be purchased — Jia Lulu, Joo Lulu and Ryuu Lulu.

Each NFT represents a different tier to their membership which will unlock unique and incremental rewards, priorities and benefits.

Tokenholders can attend various Web3 networking events and educational sessions and be granted access to exclusive private lounges and dinners, among other things.

Bar Lulu claims the NFT membership program to be an Australian first.

The bar added that the launch comes on the back of months of seeing how similar experimentations worked out overseas in the hospitality sector.

Former Amazon exec launches Yelp-like platform to review NFTs

A former Amazon and Starbucks executive, Ben Straley, has launched NFT startup, “Thred,” which aims to be the Yelp, Tripadvisor or Zillow of the NFT industry.

The NFT-focused startup launched Feb. 16 and will help users discover NFT collectibles and review them, according to a report from TechCrunch.

*A screenshot of the current Thred homepage. Source:* *Thred.*

Straley’s move into the NFT space comes from 25 years in digital product and customer experience leadership roles.

Thred’s platform will combine automated machine learning and algorithms to rank NFTs on the Ethereum and Polygon networks.

It will help potential buyers better understand the collections' significance and help distinguish which NFTs are legitimate.

Other Nifty News

One month into the “Ordinals” mania on Bitcoin, a protocol fork has made Ordinals possible on the Litecoin network. Australian software engineer Anthony Guerrera said it was “quite simple” and that he was motivated to make the fork due to a 22 Litecoin (LTC) bounty.

Real Vision co-founder and CEO Raoul Pal stated on Feb. 20 that NFTs will act similarly to high-end property in the traditional economy and potentially outperform ETH during bull markets.

The former JPMorgan executive explained that NFT collections, such as CryptoPunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), had become status symbols, much like luxury cars and houses, and he expects that trend to continue.

Moonbirds creator Kevin Rose loses $1.1M+ in NFTs after 1 wrong move

January 26, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Moonbirds creator Kevin Rose loses .1M+ in NFTs after 1 wrong move

Arran Schlosberg

Among the nonfungible tokens (NFTs) stolen from the PROOF co-founder were 25 Chromie Squiggles and one Autoglyph NFT.

Kevin Rose, the co-founder of the nonfungible token (NFT) collection Moonbirds, has fallen victim to a phishing scam leading to more than $1.1 million worth of his personal NFTs stolen.

The NFT creator and PROOF co-founder shared the news with his 1.6 million Twitter followers on Jan. 25 asking them to avoid buying any Squiggles NFTs until they manage to get them flagged as stolen.

I was just hacked, stay tuned for details - please avoid buying any squiggles until we get them flagged (just lost 25) + a few other NFTs (an autoglyph) ...
— KΞVIN R◎SE (,) (@kevinrose) January 25, 2023

“Thank you for all the kind, supportive words. Full debrief coming,” he then shared in a separate tweet about two hours later.

It is understood that Rose’s NFTs were drained after signing a malicious signature that transferred a significant proportion of his NFT assets to the exploiter.

GM – what a day!
Today I was phished. Tomorrow we'll cover all the details live, as a cautionary tail, on twitter spaces. Here is how it went down, technically: https://t.co/DgBKF8qVBK
— KΞVIN R◎SE (,) (@kevinrose) January 25, 2023

An independent analysis from Arkham found that the exploiter extracted at least one Autoglyph (345 ETH), 25 Art Blocks — also known as Chromie Squiggle — (332.5 ETH) and nine OnChainMonkey items (7.2 ETH).

In total, at least 684.7 ETH ($1.1 million) was extracted.

How Kevin Rose got exploited

While several independent on-chain analyses have been shared, Vice President of PROOF — the company behind Moonbirds — Arran Schlosberg explained to his 9,500 Twitter followers that Rose “was phished into signing a malicious signature” which allowed the exploiter to transfer over a large number of tokens:

1/ This was a classic piece of social engineering, tricking KRO into a false sense of security. The technical aspect of the hack was limited to crafting signatures accepted by OpenSea's marketplace contract.
— Arran (@divergencearran) January 25, 2023

Crypto analyst “foobar” further elaborated on the “technical aspect of the hack” in a separate post on Jan. 25, explaining that Rose approved a OpenSea marketplace contract to move all of his NFTs whenever Rose signed transactions.

He added that Rose was always “one malicious signature” away from an exploit:

be super careful when signing anything, even offchain signatures. kevin rose just had ~$2 million worth of NFTs drained from his vault from signing one malicious seaport bundle. thankfully a couple things held back, like the punk zombie (1000 ETH) which can't be traded on OS pic.twitter.com/GXHR3NQHLf
— foobar (@0xfoobar) January 25, 2023

The crypto analyst said Rose should have instead been “siloing” his NFT assets in a separate wallet:

“Moving assets from your vault to a separate "selling" wallet before listing on NFT marketplaces will prevent this.”

Another on-chain analyst, “Quit” told his 71,400 Twitter followers further explained that malicious signature was enabled by the Seaport marketplace contract — the platform which powers OpenSea:

Kevin Rose was just lost $2m+ in assets by signing an off-chain signature that created a listing for all of his OpenSea approved assets in one go.

While seaport is a powerful tool, it can also be dangerous if you're not aware of how it works.

A bit of context 1/
— quit (@0xQuit) January 25, 2023

Quit explained that the exploiters were able to set up a phishing site that was able to view the NFT assets held in Rose’s wallet.

The exploiter then set up an order for all of Rose’s assets that are approved on OpenSea to then be transferred to the exploiter.

Rose then validated the malicious transaction, noted Quit.

Meanwhile, foobar noted that most of the stolen assets were well above the floor price, which means that the amount stolen could be as high as $2 million.

Quit urged that OpenSea users “need to run away” from any other website that prompts users to sign something that looks suspicious.

NFTs on the move

On-chain analyst “ZachXBT” shared a transaction map to his 350,300 Twitter followers, which shows that the exploiter sent the assets to FixedFloat — a cryptocurrency exchange on the Bitcoin layer-2 “Lightning Network.”

The exploiter then transferred the funds into Bitcoin (BTC) and before depositing the BTC into a Bitcoin mixer:

Three hours ago Kevin was phished for $1.4m+ worth of NFTs. Earlier today the same scammer stole 75 ETH from another victim.

Mapping this out we can see a clear trend of sending the stolen funds to FixedFloat and swapping for BTC before depositing to a bitcoin mixer. https://t.co/2yrFpfYttT pic.twitter.com/ZlywPYydwx
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 25, 2023

Crypto Twitter member "Degentraland” told their 67,000 Twitter followers that it was the “saddest thing” they have seen in cryptocurrency space to date, adding that if anyone can come back from such a devastating exploit, “it’s him”:

Saddest thing I've seen in crypto to date.@kevinrose wallet drained.

If anyone can come back from this, it's him. pic.twitter.com/HZysg34qji
— Degentraland (@Degentraland) January 25, 2023

Meanwhile, Bankless founder Ryan Sean Adams was enraged with the ease at which Rose was able to be exploited. In the Jan. 25 tweet, Adams urged front-end engineers to pick up their game and improve user experience (UX) to prevent such scams from taking place.

Bluechip NFT project Moonbirds signs with Hollywood talent agents UTA

January 7, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bored Ape Yacht Club

PROOF Co-founder Kevin Rose announced the deal via Twitter on Jan. 6, noting that the aim is to get the Moonbirds brand recognized on a global scale and not just in the Web3 space.

The NFT-focused company was founded by early-stage Facebook and Twitter investor Kevin Rose, and designer Justin Mezzell in February 2022. The company also has the Proof Collective and Oddities NFT collections in its catalog.

Announcing the move via Twitter on Jan. 6, Rose suggested that the goal of the deal is to get the Moonbirds brand known on a “global” mainstream scale, as opposed to just being recognized as a big hitter in the Web3 space.

“What does UTA bring to the table? They are 1,400 people strong, with divisions in film, television, music, video games, sports, books, branding and licensing, speaking, marketing, fine arts, broadcast, and more,” he said.

PROOF, the company behind the top-tier NFT project Moonbirds, has signed a representation deal with major Hollywood talent agents United Talent Agency (UTA).

:)
— Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) January 6, 2023

Explaining the move a bit further, Rose noted that UTA will work on PROOF’s behalf to help “vet, broker, and execute partnerships and expansion opportunities across a variety of fields.”

The Ethereum-based Moonbirds project launched in April 2022 and consists of 10,000 8-bit owl-themed avatar NFTs. To date, it has generated roughly $619.5 million worth of secondary sales according to data from CryptoSlam.

That figure makes Moonbirds the eleventh highest-selling collection on the NFT market, with its nearest competitors being twelfth-placed Doodles at $553 million and tenth-placed CloneX at $794.9 million.

*Top 12 selling NFT projects of all time: CryptoSlam*

Despite the supposedly bullish UTA announcement, Moonbirds’ 24-hour sales volume has dropped a hefty 57.86%, with $442,747 worth of Moonbirds NFT changing hands during that time frame. Over a seven-day time frame however, trading volumes are still up by 63.74%.

The move from Moonbirds follows other big names in the NFT space to seek out Hollywood deals.

CryptoPunks founders Larva Labs were the first ones to pave the way back in September 2021, signing a deal with UTA to represent the firm’s IP across TV, film, video games, licensing and publishing.

The next month Yuga Labs — which now owns CryptoPunks — followed suit by signing up with UTA to push the Bored Ape Yacht Club IP into movies, TV, music and gaming. While the most recent occurrence before PROOF was the deal between UTA competitors WME and NFT start-up Boss Beauties.

Moonbirds will store NFT art ‘in chain’ — Raises $50M in Series A funding

August 31, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Moonbirds will store NFT art ‘in chain’ — Raises M in Series A funding

Coin Telegraph

Storing an NFT “in chain” means that the NFT can be generated completely off the underlying smart contract, without any need for an off-chain storage provider.

PROOF, the private community behind the Moonbirds NFT collection, has announced it is shifting its blue-chip collection completely “in chain” — allowing images to be fully contained within the underlying smart contract.

In a community live stream named “Future PROOF” on Aug. 30, Harri Thomas, director of products at PROOF explained that the new approach will mean that in the future, the viewable image of a Moonbird NFT will be “constructed from the contract itself from art layers, which are going to be stored on the blockchain.”

“We’ve talked about putting the birds ‘on chain’, so what I’m here to tell you today is that they’re not only going to be ON chain, they’re going to be put IN chain.”

Thomas explained that their Ethereum-based NFTs will be different from most other NFTs which are simply tokens that point to where the images are stored off chain.

“This is an unusual approach. Certainly not unique,” explained Harris, adding that another example of an NFT project using the same approach is OnChainMonkey, a 10K PFP NFT collection launched in 2021.

Thomas declined to provide a date for when the NFT collection will make this shift, but noted that it is a “primary focus” for the smart contract team, so “hopefully not too long.”

Co-founder and chief product officer Justin Mezzell, who was one of the hosts of the live stream added:

“It's cool to enter that rarefied space of a fully in-chain project and making sure that this project is really fully decentralized and viewable for just generations.”

The live stream also revealed the first official expansion of PROOF’s Moonbirds collection, known as Moonbird Mythics — is expected to launch in early 2023.

The collection will span 20,000 NFTs, and is the organization’s third NFT profile picture (PFP) project.

Short Moonbird recap:

New collection called Mythics

Mythics burn oddities or nested moonbirds have a go at it everyday

50m$ raise led by @a16z

Highrise way to showcase/explore art on any chains $PROOF token incoming (ticker not finalized) pic.twitter.com/bYDmRn6x5i
— 0xMaki ⌐◨-◨ (@0xMaki) August 30, 2022

$50M in funding

PROOF has just raised $50 million in a Series A funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), along with participation from Seven Seven Six, True Ventures, Collab+Currency, Flamingo DAO, SV Angel, and VaynerFund.

“It’s great to have this vote of confidence from some of the most respected investors in Web3, as well as capital to keep delivering great products and services as we mature this business over the long term,” said PROOF founder Kevin Rose.

In April, the Ethereum-based Moonbirds NFT project completely sold out its collection of 10,000 computer-generated pixel owl avatars within 48 hours of launch, netting $281 million in sales at the time.

Its success despite the bear market earned it a title as a “blue-chip” NFT.

According to Open Sea, Moonbirds is ranked at number seven in terms of total volume traded at approximately 169,000 Ether (ETH) and is currently ranked number one in the 24-hour charts at a floor price of 13.8 ETH ($21,445 at current prices).

Other announcements made during the Future PROOF live stream included an upcoming launch of a PROOF social platform, the creation of a new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that will oversee licensing of the Moonbirds name, and a new PROOF token that will have “real utility” — with more details expected in 2023.

Moonbirds NFT Sales Skyrocket Capturing $364 Million in 5 Days

April 21, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Moonbirds fly into NFT top spot with $290M sold in four days

April 19, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Moonbirds fly into NFT top spot with 0M sold in four days

BAYC

After selling for a mint price of 2.5 ETH on April 16, the floor price of Moonbirds has also quickly risen to 18.45 ETH.

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 over the seven-day and 30-day metrics, and second over the past 24 hours.

Looking at the 30-day chart, the gulf in volume is notable, with Moonbirds’ NFT sales figures a whopping 52% ahead of second-placed Azuki and its $189.3 million worth of volume, and 76% of the BAYC at $164.6 million.

DappRadar also highlighted that the Moonbirds #7963 NFT fetched the ninth-largest sale of all NFT collections over the past week at 135 ETH ($410,000).

*Top NFT Sales over past week: DappRadar*

The Moonbirds project is following a similar route to the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) by launching utility-focused NFTs that grant holders access to a private ecosystem and membership club.

According to the project’s roadmap, hodler benefits will include priority access to future drops, a membership club, merchandise, and early access to an upcoming Metaverse platform named “Project Highrise.”

The Moonbirds NFT collection was founded by the PROOF Collective, which is working on several NFT projects and also acts as an exclusive social club for the 1,000 holders of the PROOF Collective NFTs. The collectible membership passes have an eye-watering floor price of 91 ETH ($278,800) at the time of writing.

1/25

So why did I invest 120 $ETH into @moonbirds_xyz which is now valued at roughly 300 $ETH based on last sales?

Why was this such an easy play for me and why am I not selling yet?

Let's dive into Moonbirds and @proof_xyz pic.twitter.com/3zuS6IgCrn
— MoonCat2878 (@mooncat2878) April 18, 2022

Moonbirds’ impressive launch appears to be a result of investors heavily backing the founding members of the PROOF Collective, which includes tech entrepreneur and Digg founder Kevin Rose along with web3 investors Justin Mezzell and Ryan Carson.

An NFT collector who goes by “Cryptolocity” on Twitter highlighted Rose yesterday, noting that they backed the project due to his strong reputation, connections in the web2 and web3 worlds, along with his NFT focused podcast which has “contained some of the most life-changing ‘alpha’” for his listeners.

2/ First, the major reason why this project has seen such success is the people behind it all: Kevin Rose @kevinrose and his team Ryan Carson @ryancarson Justin Mezzell @JustinMezzell are very well known figure in the Web 2 and Web 3 world and are the ones spearheading it all
— Cryptolocity (@Cryptolocity) April 17, 2022

Kevin Rose