🦹🏻♂️ Phishing Exploit Pinches 60 NFTs From Top Collector
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we’re covering today:
News
DeFi Primers
Podcast
🎙Listen to the exclusive interview with Kevin Owocki here:
Video
Links
Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Investing in Crypto Fund: Sources: CoinDesk
Exclusive: FTX buys Good Luck Games in quest to convince gamers to love NFTs and blockchain: ZDNet
Art Blocks Chromie Squiggle #6986 by @artblocks_io sold for 14 ETH ($42,116.48): Art Blocks
Handpicked by The Defiant Team
Ukraine
Do you want to make a real difference in the Ukraine crisis? Until March 24th, if you donate to help improve the situation in Ukraine on Gitcoin your funds will be matched by a pool of over $700,000 using the power of quadratic funding.
In some cases, 1 DAI can be matched up to 50x, so even small amounts are meaningful. Peace is a global public good, and it's become increasingly clear that we have to work to collectively maintain it. For more details, check out http://gitcoin.co/grants and go to the "Support for Ukraine" category.
Public goods are good.
Gitcoin grants sustain web3 projects with quadratic funding
The open economy is taking over the old one. Subscribe to keep up with this revolution. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button below ($15/mo, $150/yr).
🙌 Together with:
Verse Network by STP, is a Layer 2 for DAOs. Redefining value one DAO at a time.
Eden Rocket RPC, providing the fastest private transactions on Ethereum (90%+ hashrate). Trade better anywhere on Ethereum with Eden Rocket RPC.
Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection.
Unstoppable Domains, Unstoppable Domain is the #1 provider of NFT domains. One domain, the entire metaverse - your Unstoppable domain is all you need to verify your humanity and access sites and apps on the decentralized web. Get yours today!
Exploits
🦹🏻♂️ Phishing Exploit Pinches 60 NFTs From Top Collector
Victim Publishes Hacker's Wallet to Retrieve Looted Works
By Samuel Haig
NEWS The perpetrators of a sophisticated hack have stolen more than 60 NFTs from noted collector Arthur Cheong, the founder of DeFiance Capital. Works from the valuable CloneX and Azuki collections were among those lost to the attackers.
CARELESS “Received a spear-phishing email that really seems to be sent by one of our portco with content that seems like general industry-relevant content,” Cheong tweeted on March 22, referring to a portfolio company. “Was being careless on this one since it comes from 2 seemingly legitimate sources.”
BLACKLISTED Cheong fired back by publicly posted the hacker’s wallet address so that it can be blacklisted. However, many of the tokens have already been sold to unsuspecting collectors. DeFiance Capital is a leading investor in the web3 space, having backed top protocols including Aave, dYdX, and Lido, and major networks such as Solana, Terra, and Avalanche. It also supports blockchain gaming and metaverse projects.
STOLEN A longtime crypto investor, Cheong said that after opening the file it looked like a normal PDF document. His antivirus software failed to identify the files as being malicious. According to blockchain security firm PeckShield, the stolen tokens were sold for a whopping 233 Wrapped Ether (roughly $700,000). Fortune magazine estimated the looted NFTs to be worth $1.7M.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Crypto Mood
👋🏻 Crypto Tourists Exit Amid Bear Market Bummer, Search Data Suggests
Google Searches for Ethereum and Bitcoin Down 50%
By Samuel Haig
EXITING Is crypto boring again? That may be one interpretation of search data The Defiant examined this week. Key search terms relating to crypto have been declining since January, suggesting that retail traders and DeFi tourists are exiting the sector.
COOLING According to Google Trends data, searches for crypto keywords have since been in a steady decline across the board. Volume for ‘NFT’ has dropped by two-thirds from its January peak, suggesting the nonfungibles market is seriously cooling down. Traffic for Ethereum and Bitcoin has also halved since January, and is currently trending at their lowest level since December 2020.
TRADING No surprise, really. The crypto markets have been more volatile than usual since the all-time high of last November. The last two years have seen crypto capture the imagination of ordinary investors and Wall Street institutions alike as the Covid-19 pandemic spurred unprecedented state-backed stimulus money and zero-commission platforms like Robinhood made trading super easy.
Google search traffic for ‘DeFi’, ‘Ethereum’, ‘NFT’, ‘Bitcoin’, and ‘Dogecoin’ over 5 years. Source: Google Trends
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
The Defiant Primer
🦄 What is Uniswap?
Everything You Want to Know About the Decentralized Crypto Exchange
INTERMEDARIES In 2021, the GameStop/AMC short squeeze episode demonstrated how traditional finance is full of obfuscation. Retail traders expected their trades to execute immediately. However, it turned out that an investor’s trade goes through several intermediaries, multiple congressional hearings and lawsuits later showed.
TRADING DATA Brokers, clearinghouses, and market makers are intertwined with overlapping interests, best exemplified by Robinhood’s payment for order flows (PFOF) business, which sells its trading data to hedge funds on the side.
DECENTRALIZED As an automated market maker (AMM), Uniswap does away with obfuscation and centralization. Embracing decentralized finance (DeFi) instead of centralized finance (CeFi), Uniswap has exploded in popularity. Its total value locked (TVL) has multiplied 137 times since February 2020, to $7.5B. (TVL shows how much cryptocurrency is committed to a protocol and is a key measure of its strength.)
Let’s take a closer look at Uniswap’s mechanics:
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Sponsored Post
Nexo – The Only Crypto Platform You’ll Ever Need
Nexo is a trusted and easy-to-use crypto lending and exchange platform where you can buy cryptocurrencies at the touch of a button and start earning up to 17% annual interest that is paid out daily.
The platform offers a variety of crypto investment options – from the hottest coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, to exciting DeFi and Мetaverse projects. It also allows you to swap one asset with another at lightning speed.
With Nexo, you can buy crypto with your Visa and Mastercard credit or debit card instantly and start earning on your digital assets right away.
You can also borrow cash and stablecoins tax-efficiently against your digital assets without selling them.
Nexo complies with the highest security standards and is audited in real time which is why nearly 3 million people in over 200 countries trust the platform with their digital assets.
So whether you're just getting started or you’re a seasoned pro, get rewarded with up to $100 in BTC as a welcome bonus from Nexo, when you open an account and make your first top-up.
The Tube
📺 Tutorial: How to generate an NFT collection in 10 minutes
Avalanche Summit
Avalanche Summit will take Barcelona by storm at the Poble Espanyol from March 22 to 27, 2022. The six-day event will bring together the most respected thought leaders, developers, researchers, and makers building the next-generation of Web 3.0 applications to discuss hot topics and frequently asked questions. Register to stay up-to-date with the latest–ticket sales, agenda, speakers, and more!
Links
🔗 Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Investing in Crypto Fund: Sources: CoinDesk
Bridgewater Associates is preparing to back its first crypto fund.
🔗 Exclusive: FTX buys Good Luck Games in quest to convince gamers to love NFTs and blockchain: ZDNet
FTX is acquiring Good Luck Games, makers of the card-based auto-battler Storybook Brawl.
🔗 APECOIN—Bullish or Bearish for CryptoPunks?: Bankless
In a massive week for Bored Ape Yacht Club studio Yuga Labs, they acquired CryptoPunks & Meebits from Larva Labs, as well as releasing their community token $APE.
Handpicked by The Defiant Team
Web3 Salaries Soar to $750,000 for Rank-and-File Devs Web2 giants like Google and Facebook have long been beacons for talent seeking cushy paydays, and for good reason — senior software engineers at all five FAANG companies make well over $300,000 a year, according to levels.fyi.
A Radical Proposal to Revive MakerDAO Roils Community MakerDAO, the trailblazing DeFi lending and savings project, has reached a crossroads.
Why Do Gamers Hate NFT’s? Part 2! In part one, we took a look at the state of gaming and some of the reasons why gamers are hating on NFT’s so much. Today we conclude this deep dive investigation into the topic and look at the final and fundamental reasons for this seething hate.
🧑💻 ✍️ Stories in The Defiant are written by Owen Fernau, Samuel Haig, DeFiDad, and yyctrader, and edited by Edward Robinson, yyctrader, and Camila Russo. Videos are produced by Robin Schmidt, Alp Gasimov and Daniel Flynn. Podcast is led by Camila, edited by Alp.
The Defiant is a daily newsletter focusing on decentralized finance, a new financial system that’s being built on top of open blockchains. The space is evolving at breakneck speed and revolutionizing tech and money. Signest, most interesting developments. Subscribers get full access, while free signups get only part of the content. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button above ($15/mo, $150/yr)