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The Phantom wallet app has launched a new Burn Token feature, allowing users to remove spam NFTs sent by scammers.
Solana-based wallet provider Phantom has launched a new burn feature allowing users to remove spam non-fungible tokens (NFTs) sent by scammers.
According to an Aug. 18 blog post from the Phantom team, the new feature is accessible via the Burn Token tab in the Phantom wallet app, allowing users to receive a minuscule deposit of Solana (SOL) each time they use it.
“We’re still in the Wild West days of Web3. As the crypto ecosystem grows, so have the number of bad actors looking for ways to steal user’s funds. The rapid growth in popularity of NFTs has led to an increasingly prevalent method of attack for scammers – Spam NFTs.”
Phantom noted that the issue has been particularly prevalent on Solana due to its low transaction fees, with bad actors often airdropping supposedly free NFTs en masse which contain malicious links.
Spam NFT generally prompt the receiver to click a link to mint a free NFT, however, if they complete the process, their funds end up being drained from their wallet. Alternatively, the link will ask the receiver to input their seed phrase, resulting in the same outcome.
“These scams are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. For instance, after a contract address and domain are identified as malicious, scammers can change the metadata of an NFT to try to avoid being blocklisted. It can feel like an endless game of whack-a-mole,” the blog post read.
The move is part of a broader initiative by Phantom to counter spam NFTs and bad actors in the space. The team stated that it also fights scammers through its phishing warning system, which issues warning to users on “any malicious transactions that could compromise their assets or permissions” after clicking on dubious links.
5/ While we’re introducing NFT burning and improved phishing alerts today, we’re not stopping there. Users can look forward to more automated spam detection in the future.
— Phantom (@phantom) August 17, 2022
To read more about how we're fighting wallet spam, check out our latest blog post:https://t.co/OZYOEvVIFH
The post added that Phantom is currently collaborating with Blowfish to improve how “we alert users to phishing attempts.”
“While we’re introducing NFT Burning today, we’re not stopping there. Users can look forward to more automated spam detection in the future. Using providers like SimpleHash and our own internal reporting, we will be able to gauge if an NFT is likely to be spam,” the post read.
Related: Crypto spam increases 4,000% in two years — LunarCrush
Phantom is one of the most popular wallet providers for Solana-based NFTs and decentralized fiance (DeFi), with more than 2 million monthly active users according to the firm.
At the start of August competing wallet firm Slope suffered a security exploit which saw an estimated $8 million worth of funds drained on the Solana blockchain.
In a post mortem analysis, Solana’s head of communications Austin Fedora found that 60% of the victims of the attack were Phantom users, despite the issue originating from Slope.
Solana hosted the second largest amount of NFT sales volume in July at $56.1 million, behind only Ethereum which posted a whopping $535.6 million according to data from CryptoSlam.
Noah Davis, the NFT expert for the auction house Christie’s, said he’s not looking to change the plan for CryptoPunks when he leads the project and has invited holders to a one-on-one chat.
Noah Davis, the nonfungible token (NFT) specialist at auction house Christie’s, has said he’s leaving the position in July to take up a post as brand lead for the CryptoPunks NFT collection with Yuga Labs.
Announcing the move on Sunday in a Twitter thread, Davis looked to quash any anxieties holders had regarding the future of one of the oldest NFT projects, saying he “will not f*ck with the punks.”
What does that mean? It means no Punks on lunchboxes or cringe TV shows/shitty movies. It means no arbitrary rushed utility or thoughtless airdrops. It means if you love your Punk(s) because they are what they are (just Punks) then you and I see eye to eye…
— Noah (@NonFungibleNoah) June 19, 2022
He invited CryptoPunk owners to schedule a talk with him about the project’s future at the NFT NYC event and said the new position wouldn’t take away from his own NFT project.
Davis is responsible for the record-breaking auction of Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days NFT, which sold for over $69 million in March 2021.
Yuga Labs acquired the intellectual property of the CryptoPunks collection from Larva Labs in March, saying it would turn over full commercial rights to the owners, a promise yet to be realized.
But, Yuga Labs co-founder Wylie Aronow aka Gargamel addressed the holdup in a series of tweets on Sunday, writing it was “too significant to rush” and that new terms “will be rolling out in the next couple of weeks.”
With the announcement of Davis’ move and the new terms set to take effect soon, some are alleging that insiders had prior knowledge of the information, citing the surging sales volume of the collection.
Ok so no one's going to address the obvious insider trading that happened in the last 48 hours?
— Chainleft (@ChainLeftist) June 19, 2022
Chart: @punk9059 https://t.co/56s56D5Nw1 pic.twitter.com/beNkWbAc2Y
According to OpenSea, 39 sales of the CryptoPunks collection have taken place since the announcement, with 101 sales in total on Sunday, up from the only 19 sold the day prior, on Saturday.
Convicted con-artist and fraudster Anna Sorokin, who from 2013 to 2017 pretended to be the wealthy German heiress “Anna Delvey” to defraud acquaintances and business of over $275,000, has started an NFT collection.
Titled Reinventing Anna, the collection features 2,000 NFTs for 0.1 Ether (ETH) each, or about $110 at the time of writing. It is marketed as a way for “fans to interact with Anna” and access private “ask-me-anything’s” with Sorokin.
Related: NFT trading volume surges amid market and floor price crash
The collection will feature 20 “gold edition cards,” which grant owners the possibility of a one-on-one phone call or in-person visit with the so-called “renowned socialite.”
The collection’s name is a play on the Inventing Anna Netflix drama miniseries released earlier this year, the subject of which is inspired by Sorokin’s story.
“I see this first drop as an opportunity to directly connect with my audience and take charge of the narrative that's been largely outside of my control,” Sorokin wrote in an Instagram post regarding the collection.
It’s unknown how NFT holders will be able to visit her in person, however. Since March 2021, Sorokin has been held by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement for overstaying her visa and faces deportation to Germany.
Duppies, an upcoming Solana NFT project from the same team as the popular “DeGods” collection, had its Twitter account hacked on Saturday, with attackers tweeting a link to a “stealth mint” of the NFTs.
The link was a phishing website, and users who connected their wallets and attempted to mint had their wallets drained of all funds. One Twitter user wrote they lost 650 Solana (SOL), worth around $18,850, from the attack.
In Twitter Spaces after the attack, the creator of the upcoming collection known as Frank joined security auditor Code Monkey to explain how the attack happened.
The auditor said the attacker likely accessed the Duppies Twitter account in a targeted SIM swap attack.
The attack works by scammers contacting the phone provider of the mobile number holder and trick the carrier into swapping the mobile number to a SIM card in their control. From there, the attacker can bypass any two-factor authentication on the account and gain access.
Watchmaker TAG Heuer has released a watch that can pair with a smartphone to show NFTs on the watch face and also connect to the blockchain to verify the NFT is owned by the wearer.
Despite warnings from the nation’s authorities, the number of NFT and digital collectible platforms in China has seen a five times increase since February 2022, going from just over 100 to over 500, according to local state-owned media.
AC Milan says the proceeds from the NFT collection will fund the projects undertaken by Fondazione Milan, the clubs’ charity arm.
Italian professional soccer club AC Milan will be releasing its first-ever nonfungible token (NFT) project in collaboration with the BitMEX crypto exchange. Proceeds will go to Fondazione Milan, the clubs’ charity arm.
The limited-edition collection will feature 75,817 NFTs, a number representative of the capacity of the club’s home ground, San Siro stadium. It will depict a 3D image of a jersey found in South Sudan by Danish war photographer Jan Grarup who was in the country documenting widespread flooding last December.
BitMEX partnered with AC Milan to contribute to the project by providing trading discounts and “other benefits” to the first 10,000 pre-orders. BitMEX will also donate to Fondazione Milan by purchasing a “large number” of the NFTs.
As per the announcement, the club says the proceeds will contribute to funding its charitable causes around the world, specifically mentioning the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and a UNICEF project in South Sudan.
Magic Eden, the largest marketplace by volume for Solana NFTs, according to DappRadar, has confirmed it will accept the tokens from popular Solana NFT projects “DeGods DUST” and Aurory’s “AURY” within the coming weeks.
The marketplace first teased integration of the DUST token in late March, tweeting “brb integrating $DUST” on March 31. On April 1, a drawing of a Magic Eden-themed bar with the caption “$AURY” was tweeted.
$AURY pic.twitter.com/k5gQdHvZ8b
— Magic Eden Solana's Leading NFT Marketplace (@MagicEden) April 1, 2022
“DeGods” is the most traded collection in 30 days on Magic Eden, according to its own statistics, and has an all-time trading volume on the platform of 307,121 Solana (SOL), or $33.8 million at the time of writing. “Aurory” is in third place overall in sales volume for a Solana NFT project according to DappRadar, with an all-time volume of $79.5 million.
Related: Content creators introducing a new paradigm with NFTs
The integration of the tokens may be the latest attempt by the platform to solidify itself as Solana’s native NFT marketplace after OpenSea announced it will integrate Solana, putting the two platforms in direct competition.
According to reports, Tiffany Huang, head of content and marketing at Magic Eden, stated that the platform was looking to integrate tokens from other “blue chip” NFT collections.
Solana NFTs are seeing a significant gain in volume. In the last 24 hours, the NFT sales volume on the Solana blockchain has hit over $9.2 million — an increase of 51.5% — according to analytics firm CryptoSlam.
It comes after a drop was seen in the trading volume of Solana NFTs following the March 30 announcement that OpenSea would integrate the blockchain when OpenSea announced the Solana integration. On April 6, the day before the integration was live, trading volume decreased by 34.4%.
Ethereum is still the top network when it comes to NFTs, with $49.4 million in sales made in the last 24 hours.
Starbucks has announced its foray into NFTs, with CEO Howard Schultz stating that ”sometime before the end of the calendar year, we are going to be in the NFT business.”
Autograph, the NFT platform co-founded by Tom Brady, has signed a multi-year partnership with ESPN to create a docuseries and NFT collection titled “Man in the Arena: Tom Brady,” which details the career of the NFL legend.
OpenSea shared a 16-second video on Twitter to announce the integration, with many popular Solana collections announcing their intention to list on the marketplace.
Solana (SOL) NFT holders will soon have a new option for where to trade, with OpenSea teasing its integration of the Solana blockchain.
A 16-second video shared by the OpenSea Twitter account opened with the phrase “wen solana???” being typed into a search box and revealed that Solana will be supported by the marketplace in April.
The best kept secret in web3 pic.twitter.com/xuZn64cZ4U
— OpenSea (@opensea) March 29, 2022
Rumors of OpenSea supporting Solana NFTs have circulated for months. Security researcher Jane Manchun Wong — who made Forbes 30 under 30 for her high profile tech leak scoops — shared images on Twitter in January she said were sourced from OpenSea’s platform.
The images show the marketplace’s “blockchains filter” listing Solana as an option and the Phantom Solana crypto wallet appearsg in a list of supported wallets.
OpenSea’s Chains Filter showing Solana as an option pic.twitter.com/asQoYrfTm4
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) January 25, 2022
OpenSea coyly replied to Wong’s tweet with a “wide eyes” emoji at the time, but didn’t outright confirm or deny the authenticity of the claim.
Many popular Solana NFT projects have announced their intention to list with OpenSea in April, including SolPunks, Turtles, Remnants and the Degenerate Ape Academy.
The Solana integration will pitch OpenSea in direct competition with Magic Eden, Solanart, and Solsea, the current leading NFT marketplaces on the Solana blockchain.
An OpenSea user by the handle “cchan” has sold a Bored Ape NFT and a Mutant Ape NFT for a combined value of $140.
A user made offers on the NFTs which were accepted by cchan and the sales were made to the within a minute of each other on Monday, Mar. 28, with BAYC #835 sold for 115 DAI, and MAYC #11670 sold for 25 DAI which is 99% under the current floor price.
DAI is a US dollar stablecoin with a diamond logo and it’s unknown if cchan mistook the offers to be in Ethereum (ETH) which would’ve been the equivalent of $470,000, or if the sales weres the result of a hack.
Activity by the user who purchased the NFTs shows a history of offers being made in DAI on Bored and Mutant Ape NFTs, which some have suggested could be in the hopes that this exact set of circumstances would occur.
Ross Ulbricht, the imprisoned founder of the defunct darknet marketplace “Silk Road” is set to release another collection of NFTs at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami in April, with funds raised going toward helping children travel to visit their parents in prison.
In December 2021, Ulbricht auctioned a collection at the Art Basel Miami which netted him $6.2 million. The collection was purchased by FreeRossDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that aims to “share Ross's work with the world and give everyone a unique opportunity to own a piece of it.”
“All of this has brought a new spark to my life,” Ross wrote in a post, reflecting on the sale of his last collection.
“I have direction and purpose and I feel like I can make a difference again. The more money we raise, the more good we can do, so I have been busy creating my next art collection.”
Dubbed the “Growth Collection”, it will be minted on the Bitcoin blockchain via Counterparty, and the piece will reportedly feature four physical oil paintings and one hand-drawn animation, accompanied by five Bitcoin NFTs to be auctioned on the Scarce.City network.
Related: NFTs are changing the way photographers create and market content
Ulbricht is serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole for his part in creating the illicit online marketplace, which famously used Bitcoin as the means of transaction.
The WWE has partnered with Fanatics, a sports marketing business which, amongst other offerings, enables brands to offer digital collectibles and NFTs to their audience.
The partnership will see Fanatics create “physical, digital, and non-fungible token (NFT) trading cards” for the WWE, with Fanatics to become the exclusive provider of licensed WWE physical and NFT trading cards, building a range featuring WWE’s “biggest moments and stars.”
Mark Karpelès, the former CEO of the defunct Mt. Gox exchange announced that users who used the exchange between 2010 and 2014 around the time it was hacked, are eligible to register for a free NFT in the hopes it will “erase a bit of the loss incurred in Mt. Gox.”
The Decentraland metaverse hosted the Metaverse Fashion Week between March 24-27, 2022, the event attracted over 70 big name fashion labels and artists such as Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce and Gabbana, and Estée Lauder.