NFT project y00ts to return $3M grant as it ditches Polygon for Ethereum

August 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

NFT project y00ts to return M grant as it ditches Polygon for Ethereum

DeLabs has promised to return the $3 million grant initially provided by Polygon Labs to support y00ts from Solana to Polygon.

Non-fungible token project y00ts is again switching blockchain networks, only four months after bridging the majority of its NFTs from Solana to Polygon.

DeLabs, the NFT firm behind y00ts, announced via its X (Twitter) account on Aug. 9 it will soon be migrating to Ethereum in line with its DeGods NFT collection.

1. y00ts will be migrating to Ethereum.
— y00ts (@y00tsNFT) August 9, 2023

The NFT collection had mostly migrated from Solana to Polygon in April. The move was first initially announced in December, with the migration starting officially on March 28. By March 30, Polygon announced 11,633 of a total of 15,000 y00ts NFTs had been bridged.

DeLabs said the move was to unite its y00ts community with its DeGods community. DeGods had also announced it would be bridging off Solana in December and similarly began its migration from Solana to Ethereum at the start of April.

*DeLabs’ listings of y00ts on NFT marketplace OpenSea. Source:* *OpenSea*

“We still love Polygon. It's just time to unite the DeGods & y00ts communities,” y00ts wrote in a statement.

The team has also disclosed it will be returning a $3 million grant from Polygon Labs, which it had received in January from the blockchain firm to support its migration.

“We're returning 100% of the grant provided by Polygon. The funds will be re-deployed for NFT ecosystem growth to empower builders and creators,” it said.

1. We tried our best to make it work but we just need to bring our 2 communities together.

I would appreciate it if everyone remains respectful of all parties involved.

It’s all love. https://t.co/6AT4SMUT76
— Frank (@frankdegods) August 9, 2023

The news was met with mixed reactions by members of the NFT community.

Some industry pundits offered their support and backing behind NFT project founder FrankDeGods, while others expressed concern about the seemingly diminishing state of Polygon’s NFT ecosystem.

Huge blow to the Polygon NFT ecosystem

but organic NFT demand on Polygon seems nonexistent

I support this choice, feels like it was a no brainer tbh

Happy for y00t holders, this is an easy dub https://t.co/TwWtLTpq26
— Iced (@IcedKnife) August 10, 2023

According to NFT Price Floor, DeGods and y00ts currently boast the 6th and 22nd highest floor prices at 8.66 ETH ($16,065) and 1.35 ETH ($2,465) respectively.

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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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DeGods and Y00ts NFTs are bridging off Solana. Here’s why

December 27, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Anatoly Yakovenko

The migration of Solana's top two NFT projects to Polygon and Ethereum is set for the first quarter of 2023 on an opt-in basis.

Nonfungible token (NFT) firm Dust Labs is migrating its two top-performing Solana NFT projects — DeGods and y00ts — onto Ethereum and Polygon in a bid to expand their adoption.

The news was announced on DeGods and y00ts Twitter page on Dec. 25, with both NFT projects expected to be officially bridged onto Ethereum and Polygon respectively in the first quarter of 2023.

Rohun Vora — the creator of DeGods and y00ts who is known by the alias Frank III — said the decision was made to “explore new opportunities” and to allow for the continued growth of the collection. The move will also see the DUST token — used to buy, sell and mint NFTs on the DeGods ecosystem — also be bridged onto Ethereum and Polygon.

It's just the beginning. pic.twitter.com/F3vxzXQAOy
— Frank III (@frankdegods) December 25, 2022

Vora confirmed that two NFT projects will still remain on Solana for the time being, and in a separate post responding to a Twitter user, confirmed that the bridge/migration will be owner "opt-in."

During a Dec. 26 Twitter spaces, Vora explained to 66,000 listeners that it was simply a matter of getting the NFT projects on the platforms that he sees will drive the next wave of NFT adoption.

In his reasoning, he made parallels to the intense battle for intellectual property (IP) between streaming services such as Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO Max — suggesting that the streaming service that secures the best IP will ultimately win the lion’s share of viewers, which then attracts better projects.

“They’re trying to get the best IP on their streaming services because that IP is ultimately going to drive the growth on that platform.”

“Once you get enough IP on the platform it becomes a virtuous cycle, people want to be on Netflix because that’s just the brand and the place to be,” he added.

He said a similar battle is playing out between different blockchains that are trying to build the best NFT platforms, noting that as NFTs are driven by attention, there is an opportunity for “virtuous cycles” that would create a network effect for NFT projects.

From there, “the metrics, the volume and the liquidity will follow that,” he added.

Vora said his bullish view on Polygon for NFTs was influenced by the fact that Disney, Adidas, Nike and Reddit chose Polygon as their NFT platform of choice.

Vora also said that he had received grant offers from many other platforms, most of which were much larger than what was offered by Polygon, but Polygon provided y00ts with the best opportunities moving forward.

“Polygon by far was one of the lowest, if not the lowest in terms of dollar value, but we went with Polygon because we see a lot of opportunity on a strategic level and that’s what excites me and should excite you holders more than anything.”

The news has only added to the growing list of concerns for Solana, which has seen the total value locked (TVL) on the ecosystem fall 97.88% from a peak of $10.17 billion to $215M at the time of writing, according to decentralized finance data aggregator DefiLlama.

Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko shared his “bittersweet” feeling on the news that the NFT projects would no longer “100% focus on Solana” to his 223,600 Twitter followers on Dec. 26, but accepted the “reality” that these projects want to expand their reach.

But controversial figure Ben “Bitboy” Armstrong and a fair share of his 1 million Twitter followers weren’t so optimistic on Solana’s future, with 70% of 11,881 voters in a poll voting “Yes” to “Is Solana dead.”

Let’s check the temperature on #solana now that the top 2 NFT projects are leaving $SOL.

Is Solana dead?
— Ben Armstrong (@Bitboy_Crypto) December 26, 2022

According to DappRadar, both the y00ts and DeGods NFT collections are ranked first and second in terms of fiat transaction volume on Solana over the last 30 days.

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y00ts

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