Wyre Announces Modification of Withdrawal Policy, Pushing Topps to Temporarily Suspend NFT Marketplace Transactions

January 7, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Magic Eden to refund users after 25 fake NFTs sold due to exploit

January 5, 2023 Coin Telegraph

ABC

Over two dozen fake NFTs were sold on the Magic Eden marketplace over a 24-hour period due to a "massive exploit" on the platform.

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 the affected projects were the high-priced and popular Solana-based collections ABC and y00ts.

Do not buy these @y00tsNFT on @MagicEden, they are fake!

Basically, every single collection is fake on Magiceden, a massive exploit is happening ongoing.

High-value NFTs are suffering the most, as attackers choose to exploit higher-value NFTs first. pic.twitter.com/35RYHOKVxd
— HGE.SOL ‍♂️ (@HGESOL) January 4, 2023

The NFT platform said it has rectified the issue by temporarily disabling both tools and eliminating the “entry points” that allowed unverified NFTs to get through.

It also asked users to perform a “hard refresh” to ensure the unverified listings no longer show up on their browser session and shut down the purchase of unverified NFTs as a precaution.

“Magic Eden is safe for trading and we will refund all the users who mistakenly bought unverified NFTs specifically due to this issue,” it wrote.

Earlier today, unverified NFTs were being shown as part of verified collections on ME. In the last day, impact was contained to 25 unverified NFTs sold in 4 collections.

We've resolved the issue and will refund those affected. Now, no one can buy unverified NFTs on ME.
— Magic Eden (@MagicEden) January 4, 2023

Magic Eden first raised the alarm over the fraudulent NFTs in a Twitter post on Jan. 4, citing community reports that people were able to buy fake ABC NFTs. At the time, it said it added “verification layers” in an attempt to resolve the issue.

After the announcement, Twitter users continued to sound the alarm on fake y00ts NFTs pervading the platform. A screenshot from ABC creator “HGE” showed at least two sales worth 100 Solana (SOL) each, a total amount of around $2,600.

DeGods, the creator of y00ts, also tweeted to its followers that there was an exploit on Magic Eden that allowed unverified NFTs to be listed as part of the collection.

There is currently an exploit on Magic Eden allowing for unverified NFT’s to be listed as part of the collection

You can verify if an NFT is part of the collection on our explore page linked below

If it’s not in our explorer, it’s not our NFThttps://t.co/c4HKIJJD1n
— DeGods III (@DeGodsNFT) January 4, 2023

The latest exploit is now the second incident that users of Magic Eden has had to go through this week.

On Jan. 3, the marketplace was littered with pornographic images and images from the television series The Big Bang Theory.

Magic Eden said a third-party image hosting provider was “compromised” leading to the “unsavory images” and assured users their NFTs were safe.

Cointelegraph contacted Magic Eden for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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Ukrainian Steals Bitcoin From Russian Darknet Market, Donates to Charity

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OpenSea blocks Cuban artists from the platform due to US sanctions

December 23, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

OpenSea’s terms of service explicitly prohibit individuals and organizations from sanctioned regions from using its platform.

Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea has been banning artists and collectors from Cuba, citing United States sanctions as the key reason behind its action.

According to a report published by Artnet, 30 artists and collectors have been banned from the popular NFT marketplace until now. The most noted artist to face the axe includes well-known Havana-based artists Gabriel Guerra Bianchini and Fábrica de Arte Cubano.

OpenSea marketplace has mentioned in its terms of service that it explicitly prohibits sanctioned individuals and individuals in sanctioned jurisdictions. The NFT marketplace’s adhesion to United States sanctions was widely known and included countries such as Venezuela, Iran and Syria. However, the recent blocking of Cuban artists adds the country to that list as well.

"We continue to holistically evaluate what other measures need to be taken to serve our community and comply with applicable law," an OpenSea Spokesperson told Cointelegraph.

A Twitter profile called NFT Cuba Art revealed earlier in December that OpenSea had blocked them from viewing or listing their art while they still had access to their wallets. Erich García Cruz, the founder of Bit Remasa, responded that their NFT collections were banned too. Cryptocuban founder Gabriel Bianchini added that the future of Web3 doesn’t look decentralized.

So sad to see that the future of web3 won’t be decentralized @nftcubaart and @GianniDalerta are part of the Cuban web3 history and so much more! ❤️
— GabrielBianchini.ethᵍᵐ (@GGBIANCHINI) December 13, 2022

Apart from OpenSea, several crypto platforms had to shut down their services for Russian customers in the wake of the new European Union sanctions issued after the war in Ukraine began earlier this year.

While the cryptocurrency ecosystem is built on the ethos of decentralization, the majority of the intermediaries and firms facilitating various services still very much work like most centralized Web2 companies.

The crypto community was not very pleased with the auctions of the NFT marketplace and called for an end to intermediaries. Another user said that there is a need for real decentralized platforms that don't care about nationalities

Crypto platform Paxful removes ETH from its marketplace

December 21, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Paxful CEO Ray Youssef highlights Ethereum’s move to proof-of-stake, perceived centralization and token minting ability as reasons for the move.

Peer-to-peer cryptocurrency marketplace Paxful has removed Ether (ETH), Ethereum’s native token, from its marketplace, citing a number of concerns around the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Paxful CEO Ray Youssef announced the move in a message to some 11.6 million users of the platform, which he subsequently shared on Twitter.

We finally kicked #ethereum off our marketplace. 11.6m humans safer. Integrity over revenue Who is next ? pic.twitter.com/JTJXa5RYJ8
— Ray Youssef (@raypaxful) December 21, 2022

Youssef highlighted three major concerns around the Ethereum ecosystem which led to the marketplace removing ETH, citing Paxful’s intent to maintain its integrity and efforts to combat ‘economic apartheid’ around the world driven by fiat monetary systems:

“I want to see a world where Bitcoin frees billions of people held back by this evil system, especially those unnecessarily harmed living in the global south.”

Ethereum’s switch from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus was the first reason given for the move. Youssef explained that PoW is the ‘innovation that makes Bitcoin (BTC) the only honest money there is’ and that Ethereum’s transition to PoS has turned ETH into a ‘digital form of fiat.’

Youssef also criticized Ethereum for not being decentralized and cited the protocol's ability to allow the tokenization of assets as a driver of scams and fraud across the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

“The tokens that ETH has spawned have been scams that robbed people of billions. They have stolen valuable momentum away from Bitcoin and cost us years on our mission.”

Paxful’s CEO has also been a vocal advocate for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency self-custody in the wake of FTX’s collapse in November 2022. Youssef implored cryptocurrency users to shift BTC holdings to self-custody storage, with Paxful users also encouraged to follow suit.

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December 15, 2022 Bitcoin.com

GameStop to drop crypto efforts as Q3 losses near $95M

December 9, 2022 Coin Telegraph

GameStop to drop crypto efforts as Q3 losses near M

Coin Telegraph

The gaming company has stopped its cryptocurrency-related focuses but is seemingly still pushing ahead with its NFT and blockchain plans.

Gaming retailer GameStop says it will no longer focus any efforts on cryptocurrencies, after amounting $94.7 million in net losses in the third quarter and laying off staff from its digital assets department.

On a Dec. 7 earnings call GameStop CEO, Matt Furlong, said it “proactively minimized exposure to cryptocurrency” over the year and “does not currently hold a material balance of any token,” adding:

“Although we continue to believe there is long-term potential for digital assets in the gaming world, we have not and will not risk meaningful stockholder capital in this space.”

Earlier this year the company said it was looking at crypto, along with nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and Web3 applications, as avenues for growth calling these spaces "increasingly relevant for gamers of the future."

Going forward it will shift focus to collectibles, gaming and pre-owned items.

Its moves in the NFT space are still seemingly going ahead as it says its “also pursuing, and plan to continue to pursue, other business and strategic initiatives associated with digital assets and blockchain technology,” according to a Dec. 7 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Cointelegraph contacted GameStop to confirm that it would continue efforts on its NFT marketplace but did not receive a response.

GameStop has pushed numerous Web3-related products, the most recent being its NFT marketplace that went live on ImmutableX, an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain, on Oct. 31 following a July public beta.

Prior to its NFT marketplace, in May the company launched a beta self-custody crypto wallet and beta NFT marketplace on Loopring in March, Loopring is another Ethereum-based layer-2 protocol.

It also partnered with the now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX US in September aimed at bringing more customers to crypto and working together on e-commerce and online marketing initiatives. It ended ties with the exchange on Nov. 11 soon after it filed for bankruptcy.

It’s Q3 losses slightly narrowed compared to the second quarter however, which saw losses of $108.7 million. It’s also a year-on-year improvement for GameStop, which posted a $105.4 million loss in Q3 2021.

Staff cuts reportedly hit crypto department

On Dec. 5 GameStop cut multiple staff in its third round of layoffs for 2022 which Furlong confirmed in the earnings call.

Earlier reports suggested that the team working on the company's blockchain and NFT projects was the most impacted, however, Furlong did not specify where the staff cuts were concentrated during the call.

Earlier posts from people claiming to be former employees have shed some light. Daniel Williams, lead software engineer at GameStop wrote in a Dec. 5 LinkedIn post:

“Another big round of layoffs from GameStop currently in progress… E-commerce Product and Engineers... Lots of them.”

Other posts from those claiming to be affected by the cuts also appeared on LinkedIn at the time. Brandon Jenniges, a former iOS and blockchain engineer posted he “had a great time getting a deep dive into Ethereum and learning about many new things in the crypto space.”

“I and the rest of the mobile team were let go,” wrote former developer Christopher Fields.

In July, the company terminated its CFO Michael Recupero and a number of staff at its video game-focused magazine Game Informer.

Magic Eden follows OpenSea with NFT royalty enforcement tool

December 2, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The open-source Open Creator Protocol of the NFT marketplace will enforce NFT creator royalties for new collections that opt-in to the tool.

Magic Eden, a Solana-based nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, has become the latest platform to release a tool allowing creators to enforce royalties on their collections.

It follows the announcement of a similar tool from rival NFT marketplace OpenSea in early November.

According to a Dec. 1 statement, the open-source royalty enforcement tool is built on top of Solana's SPL token standard and is called the Open Creator Protocol (OCP). This will allow royalty enforcement for new collections that opt-in to the standard starting Dec. 2.

Lu previously floated the idea of NFTs designed to enforce royalties at Solana’s Breakpoint 2022 conference on Nov. 5, citing the need for NFT creators to have a “sustained revenue model.”

Creators who use OCP will also be able to ban marketplaces that have not enforced royalties on their collections. Magic Eden will still maintain optional royalties on its platform for collections that do not adopt OCP.

2/ Solana’s community has been waiting for a resolution on royalties.

When we went to optional royalties mid Oct, we said we hoped to soon return to a royalty respecting world. However, royalties needed protection at the protocol level to be truly defensible.
— Magic Eden (@MagicEden) December 1, 2022

In a Dec. 1 Twitter thread, Magic Eden said it “can't retroactively apply OCP to existing collections,” telling creators they will have to conduct “burn [and] re-mints” where the NFTs are sent to an unrecoverable wallet address and re-issued by the collection.

"We have been in active conversations with multiple ecosystem partners to identify solutions for creators in a timely manner,” Lu said in the statement. He added the marketplace's intention with OCP was to “immediately support royalties” for new collections while it coordinates with other partners for more solutions.

An additional feature of the protocol touted by Magic Eden is the ability for creators to introduce dynamic royalties — that could reduce the value of royalties of buyers who pay higher prices — and customizable token transferability which could see, for example, NFTs limited to a number of trades or be subject to a trade freeze for a set period of time.

Magic Eden moved to an optional royalties model in October allowing buyers the option to set the royalties they wish to contribute to projects, which split opinions in Twitter’s NFT community.

The OCP tool follows a similar on-chain tool launched in early November by OpenSea that restricted NFT sales to only marketplaces enforcing royalties.

Magic Eden created a similar royalty enforcement tool, MetaShield, in partnership with peer marketplace and aggregator Coral Cube in September before its move to optional royalties.

OpenSea Seaport Protocol onboards creators and NFT holders on BNB Chain

November 29, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Binance

BNB Chain’s integration into the Seaport Protocol aims to provide BNB Chain creators with multiple creator payouts, real-time payouts and collection management.

Crypto collectibles and nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea announced plans to integrate BNB Chain on Seaport Protocol by the end of Q4 2022. The integration will allow users to buy, list and trade BNB Chain NFTs on the OpenSea marketplace.

BNB Chain was built by Binance to operate as a Web3-focused blockchain network powered by the exchange's in-house token, Binance Coin (BNB). BNB Chain’s integration into OpenSea's Seaport Protocol aims to provide BNB Chain creators with multiple creator payouts, real-time payouts and collection management, among others.

Sharing insights into the move, Gwendolyn Regina, Investment Director at BNB Chain, revealed her intent to deliver better experiences to NFT creators and users. She added:

“The integration will bring a large number of creators into the wider system, as well as empower the creators and NFT initiatives inside the BNB Chain ecosystem.”

The integration aims to lower gas fees, provide easier signature confirmation actions and eliminate setup fees. In addition to BNB Chain, OpenSea plans to leverage Seaport across multiple blockchains to reach more users.

OpenSea recently confirmed to continue enforcing royalties across all collections after receiving significant public backlash for considering otherwise.

The community pushback came after OpenSea announced the launch of an on-chain tool that would allow creators to enforce royalties for any new collections on the platform but stopped short of offering the same to existing collections.

The on-chain tool, as described by OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer as a “simple code snippet,” was aimed at taking over the existing system of voluntary creator fee payment. The code would also restrict NFT sales to only marketplaces that enforce creator fees criteria.

Well… For instance, I committed myself to a 100 piece collection. I’m currently at 96 out of the 100… And now I’m stuck with this message and I can’t complete it. Ever. Thanks! pic.twitter.com/DdLRNpiucI
— Hammy.eth (@HamsterNFT) January 27, 2022

In January 2022, OpenSea had to backtrack its attempt to impose hard limits on minting NFTs after the community retaliated. The platform had temporarily changed its policy to only allow five NFT collections with 50 items per collection, which was previously unlimited.

While reversing the decision, OpenSea had argued that smart contracts were being misused and that “over 80% of the items created with this tool were plagiarized works, fake collections, and spam.”

marketplace

Staff cuts reportedly hit crypto department

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