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Quick Take

• This weekly series explores the most interesting insights in NFTs, blockchain gaming, and virtual worlds
• Prices for plots of virtual land have taken a hit in March, which might herald a cyclical downturn
• As the required upfront investment for popular play-to-earn economies still remains an obstacle, a secondary economic layer has been established to cater to this audience

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Before IreneDAO went viral last year, Irene Zhao only had a few hundred followers on Instagram. Today, the influencer from Singapore has nearly half a million followers on the social platform.

In this episode of The Scoop, Irene Zhao and Ben Tang share why IreneDAO is a proof-of-concept for their web3 startup named So-Col or ‘Social Collectables’, and how web3 could empower both content creators and fan communities alike.

As Zhao commented during the interview,

“IreneDAO kind of revolutionized the way the creator is able to interact with their fans… the relationship between creator and fans tends to be very transactional, because the creator just gives them exclusive content and then the fans just pay money in return… because of DAOs, all the fans are able to unite together, to come together, and come up with something that really aligns with the creator’s vision.”

Zhao and Tang believe ‘fan club DAOs’ will allow fans to organize themselves in a way not currently possible outside of web3.

“If you look at monetization, there’s not a lot of ways to monetize apart from like selling out, doing a lot of advertisements, or doing like an OnlyFans, or things that people might not really be very keen to kind of do.”

This is something they believe will change with web3.

“The keyword here is ownership,” Tang explains, “In web2, you cannot own a stake in the creator’s fan club. Here, you can actually own a stake in it through NFTs.”

Tang and Zhao are not the only ones who see the potential of web3 to disrupt the ownership economy: digital ownership and DAO services are two topics that web3 VC funds have been paying close attention to.

During this episode, Zhao, Tang, and Chaparro also discuss:

• DAO community governance
• ‘Sentiment’ as utility
• NFTs vs ERC-20 for DAO membership

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River
Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime
Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River
Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

After launching futures contracts tied to bitcoin and ether in recent years, CME Group is looking at whether it can introduce futures based on cryptocurrencies with smaller market caps, including Solana’s SOL and Cardano’s ADA.  

The Chicago-based exchange is “looking at” creating altcoin futures contracts given significant client requests, Payal Shah, CME’s director of equity and cryptocurrency products, said as part of a panel discussion at CryptoCompare’s Digital Asset Summit in London on Wednesday.  

Shah, however, stated that launching altcoin futures will depend on sorting out issues related to price indexes and regulation. According to Shah, the CME’s existing bitcoin and ether futures depend on indexes based on price feeds from five exchanges.

“In terms of the other coins outside bitcoin and ether, we need firstly an index or we need the ability to create an index,” she added.

On the subject of regulation, Shah pointed out the current lack of regulatory certainty for altcoins in the United States. “We need to know where to send the paperwork,” Shah stated, referring to the lack of clarity about which US regulatory agency will have jurisdiction over altcoin-related instruments.

Bitcoin and ether are the only cryptos so far deemed to be non-securities by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Meanwhile, the SEC has previously stated that many altcoins are securities.

Since launching bitcoin futures in December 2017, the CME has released options and futures contracts for ether. In March, the CME launched micro bitcoin and ether options.

In April 2021, CME had to deny rumors that it was launching dogecoin futures after reports began circulating on Twitter.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

After falling consecutively since October, bitcoin mining revenues had a month-over-month increase of 14%.

Bitcoin miners brought in a total of $1.21 billion in revenue in March, according to data compiled on The Block’s Data Dashboard. Mining revenue came in at $1.06 billion in February. 

Most of that revenue came from the block subsidy ($1.19 billion) and only a small portion from transaction fees ($15.26 million).

Total revenues have declined from $1.72 billion in October. They hit an all-time high in March 2021, with a total of $1.75 billion.

For more must-read figures from around the digital asset space, read the March by-the-numbers breakdown by The Block Research’s Lars Hoffmann (Research subscription required).

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Quick Take

• Total adjusted on-chain volume increased by 0.9% to $594 billion.
• A total of 118,627 Ethereum, equivalent to $346 million, was burned in March.
• Centralized exchange spot trading volumes increased by 8% to $744.5 billion.
• Bitcoin futures volume increased by 7.4% to $1.29 trillion.

This research piece is available exclusively to
members of The Block Research.
You can continue reading
this Research content on The Block Research.

Ronin, an Ethereum sidechain that hosts Axie Infinity’s play-to-earn game, said it has replaced the compromised validator nodes run by the game’s creator Sky Mavis and its core contributor.

Ronin’s development team also revealed plans to add new security validators in the coming weeks, meaning the number of parties verifying transactions on the sidechain will increase.

“Today we replaced all of the former Sky Mavis validators,” the development team said in a community alert on Thursday, adding, “This [adding new validators] will be a key step in bolstering the security of the network.”

The update comes after a massive exploit was disclosed on Ronin on Tuesday. The sidechain reported an unknown entity stole more than 173,600 ether and 25.5 million USDC stablecoin a week prior. The exploit totaled to a staggering sum of almost $600 million — making it one of the largest crypto hacks ever — according to data aggregated by The Block. 

A post-mortem report revealed a hacker was able to gain malicious control over five of the nine Ronin’s validators, enough to drain funds locked on the sidechain’s bridge with Ethereum. 

The Ronin sidechain relies on validator nodes that play a critical role in its security. It verifies transactions using a majority consensus or agreement of validators. Hence, adding more validators will help to boost its security.

In an earlier community-alert, Ronin did admit having a ‘small validator set,’ which it may be planning to expand. However, the complete details regarding the validator update have yet to be released.

As to the ongoing investigation of the $600 million hack, the Ronin team said it had ‘various calls’ with key stakeholders, including law enforcement agencies and exchanges, adding that it “cannot share more substantial information” for the time being.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bitso gave away 1,840,500 Brazilian reals (about $387,000) to Brazilian soccer fans during a recent match, using QR codes printed on players’ sleeves to initiate a game of tag for viewers at home. 

The giveaway was part of a new sports marketing experiment from the Latin America-focused cryptocurrency exchange, which is working to expand its presence in Brazil. 

A ‘game within a game’

During a March 10 soccer game between São Paulo Futebol Clube (SPFC) and the Palmeiras, viewers were invited to play a “game within a game” during the match to win 50 Brazilian reals (now $10.52) from Bitso. The game consisted of trying to “catch” a QR code printed on the sleeve of the SPFC players’ jerseys during the live broadcast of the match.

When viewers “caught” one of the codes, they would be directed to a promotional landing page asking them for some personal details that were used to generate a voucher. Users then had seven days to redeem that voucher so that fiat funds would appear in their Bitso wallet, which they could then use to purchase crypto. 

Bitso calculates that more than 36,800 fans participated in the promotion, estimating that it gave away the equivalent of approximately one bitcoin during every 10 minutes of the game. The company developed the promotion through its in-house creative lab, Bitso’s VP of Marketing José Molina told The Block during a March 16 interview. 

“If you caught the code, you would get 50 reais straight into your Bitso account,” Molina said. 

Crypto sports deals are booming 

It’s hard to think about QR codes in crypto sports ads without having a flashback to the one bouncing around the screen during Coinbase’s minute-long Superbowl ad in February. But Molina says that Bitso’s campaign was more dynamic, requiring viewers to wait for the right camera angle to snag the QR code off of a player’s sleeve as they ran around the field. 

Bitso is just one crypto company that has been focused on striking sponsorship deals and promotions with popular sports teams worldwide, using the broad appeal of these clubs to introduce more people to digital assets in the markets they serve. 

Bitso announced a deal to sponsor SPFC in January, and that same month said it would become the first crypto sponsor for the Mexican National Team (Selección Mexicana de Fútbol). The value of these deals has not been disclosed. The exchange counts about 4 million users of its platform in Latin America, with a presence in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

“We wanted to attach ourselves and to partner with institutions that are trusted by people in the countries where we operate,” Molina said. He explained that Bitso wants to work with partners focused on innovation to help them “bridge the change” coming from using new technologies like crypto.

Finding the right partners 

While crypto sports deals are booming, Molina said that Bitso is not forming these partnerships just to jump on the bandwagon. Nor is it seeking to simply slap its logo on a sports jersey and call it a day.

Instead, the marketing executive said Bitso is focused on being able to “drive educational content” with its partners. Ideally, Bitso would be able to build people’s trust in crypto, while also easing their fears and boosting their curiosity, Molina added.

“When we do some activations — I think that’s industry-wide — there are people that are going to be hesitant, there are people that are going to be dubious about if things could work or not,” Molina said. “And then, we make it work, and then we start building that trust.”

These types of deals are not for everyone, though. Molina said that some institutions Bitso has spoken to about partnerships have not been interested. Others, though, have been “very keen.” 

Meanwhile, largely outside of Latin America, increasingly far-reaching crypto marketing has caused some countries to heighten their scrutiny of advertisements featuring digital assets. The UK, Singapore and Spain are some examples.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The NFT marketplace OpenSea has rolled out direct card payments on its platform through MoonPay, simplifying the process of acquiring an NFT for those who don’t own crypto. 

Collectors will be able to pay directly via Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Apple Pay, Google Pay, among other methods, without having to convert to specific cryptocurrencies first, a MoonPay spokesperson told The Block.

The move is set to expand the marketplace’s customer base to more non-crypto natives. 

All NFTs on OpenSea are supported natively, and all deliveries are handled on-chain, meaning that OpenSea users don’t need to travel outside the platform to pay, and aren’t tied to using a custodial ledger or forced to use a specific token. The catch for those paying on card is that it may cost more due to added fees. 

This payment method covers both primary NFT sales, including minting and initial drops, as well as secondary trading.

The feature will be rolled out in phases to batches of users, MoonPay said. Those using OpenSea will still have to hold NFTs in their own wallet. 

MoonPay first launched its plug-and-play service for buying and selling NFTs with a credit card in January. The move came as Mastercard announced that it was joining forces with Coinbase to enable people to buy NFTs with their debit and credit cards.

This is the latest move of many which aim to bring NFTs to the masses. Earlier this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said that Instagram would look to integrate NFTs “over the next several months.”

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The Discord server of Bored Ape Yacht Club — the largest NFT collection by market cap — was compromised today, the team confirmed in a Twitter post.

An unknown hacker gained access to the official Discord meant to host members of Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Kennel Club, three NFT collections from Yuga Labs. 

The hacker successfully posted a phishing link in the Mutant Ape Kennel Club channel. It was disguised as a ‘stealth NFT mint’ and was used to steal Mutant Ape Yacht Club #8662 from one user, according to security firm PeckShield.

The BAYC team said in its tweet that it had ‘caught’ the issue immediately. Nevertheless, the team cautioned users not to mint any NFT using a link posted on its Discord and reminded observers that it had no plans for any April Fools stealth mints. 

“STAY SAFE. Do not mint anything from any Discord right now. A webhook in our Discord was briefly compromised,” BAYC wrote in its tweet. “We caught it immediately but please know: we are not doing any April Fools stealth mints / airdrops etc. Other Discords are also being attacked right now.”

Twitter users have warned about a similar exploit on the Discord server of Doodles, another popular NFT collection, but the Doodles team is yet to comment.

Compromising Discord accounts is a common route hackers take to execute phishing attacks on NFTs collectors. Just a few weeks ago, a newly launched NFT collection Rare Bears said its members fell victim to a similar incident and lost assets over $790,000. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

A final decision on the permit renewal for Greenidge’s upstate New York crypto mining facility has been pushed back to June 30.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced on Thursday that it would start reviewing new greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation measures proposed by Greenidge in a letter dated March 25.

The agency had previously told Greenidge that additional steps were needed to meet the requirements set by New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), signed into law in 2019.

In the letter, Greenridge proposed that two limitations be added to the permit. Firstly, a 40% greenhouse gas emissions reduction of its Dresden facility from the current permitted level by the end of 2025. Secondly, a requirement to be a zero-carbon emitting power generation facility by 2035.

Greenidge maintains that it is already compliant with the CLCPA. The company argues that a denial over emissions standards “defies logic” because GHG emissions limits in the CLCPA would only need to be achieved years after the new permit would expire.

The company said its 106-megawatt facility in Dresden only made up “a fraction” of electricity generation in New York and that it had reduced the plant’s combined upstream and onsite GHG emissions by roughly 70% when compared to the 1990 baseline set in the CLCPA.

Cornell professor Anthony Ingraffea, who testified during a State Assembly public hearing last year on mining and climate change, told The Block on first review of the letter: “I have no idea how they could possibly reduce their CO2 emissions by 40% below their current permit without seeing details.”

Ingraffea said it would be important to have a clear roadmap for when and how the company plans to achieve this.

“The devil is in the details,” Ingraffea said. “They say by the end of 2025. Are they going to start doing it at the beginning of 2025? Are they gonna start doing it tomorrow?”

The Block has reached out to Greenidge for more details on how the company plans to achieve this goal. While it did not provide the specific steps it plans to take, the company said it plans to go further than it has in the past to reduce emissions.

“We are willing to do far more than we have already done to further reduce GHG emissions and help the State achieve its statewide CLCPA goals,” Greenidge said.

It also claimed that opponents of the plant have tried to “mislead the public.”

“This is a standard air permit renewal governing permitted emissions levels, not a cryptocurrency permit,” Greenidge said.

The decision by the DEC has now been delayed multiple times, as the plant drew attention from environmentalists and the general public. The DEC has received around 4,000 letters about the permit and will continue to review them in the following months.

With a growing number of miners setting up operations in New York, state legislators have been trying to push a bill that would establish a moratorium on new permits for certain types of mining plants planning to use carbon-based fuel.

A recent study from Columbia University has also argued that the New York governor has the authority to impose a moratorium via executive order.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.