The Cryptocurrency market had a successful weekend! While hackers stole $1.08 million from Audius after passing a bogus proposal, Universities in Tokyo are now providing Metaverse courses, and Tesla announced a $64 million profit from Bitcoin sales, the cryptocurrency market is alive and well. The last several weeks have been extremely eventful.
In this issue:
• A hacker stole $1.08 million from Audius after passing a fraudulent proposal.
• The University of Tokyo will offer Metaverse courses.
• The GameStop ‘Falling Man’ NFT tale best exemplifies the power of the people.
• Aptos Labs obtains $150 million in funding, more than tripling its worth.
• Tesla announces a profit of $64 million on Bitcoin sales. (Tesla making profit!)
• Chipotle takes ‘buy the dip’ literally with new $200K crypto giveaway.
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A hacker stole $1.08 million from Audius after passing a fraudulent proposal.
In crypto, proposals facilitate consensus-based decision making. For the decentralised music platform Audius, however, the approval of a malicious governance proposal led to the transfer of $6.1 million worth of tokens, with the hacker stealing $1 million.
On Sunday, the community voted in favour of Proposal #85, a malicious proposal asking the transfer of 18 million AUDIO tokens held by Audius. The attacker crafted a fraudulent proposal in which they were “able to call initiate() and establish himself as the only guardian of the governance contract,” as spreekaway first reported on Crypto Twitter.
Audius’s further inquiry revealed the illicit transfer of AUDIO tokens from the organization’s coffers. Audius proactively suspended all Audius smart contracts and AUDIO tokens on the Ethereum blockchain after the disclosure to prevent future losses. Shortly afterwards, the business restarted token transfers and said, “Remaining smart contract functionality is being re-enabled following a comprehensive examination/mitigation of the issue.”
The Blockchain investigator Peckshield pinpointed the error to irregularities in Audius’ storage arrangement.
While the hacker’s governance plan depleted the treasury of 18 million tokens valued at roughly $6 million, it was quickly discarded and sold for $1.08 million. While the selling resulted in maximum slippage, investors urged an urgent repurchase to prevent current investors from engaging in dumping and further decreasing the token’s floor price.
One investor inquired, “Did they hack into the communal fund? “Isn’t the team’s finance separate?”
Rumburg verified to Cointelegraph that the exploit’s core cause has been eliminated and cannot be used again. Given that the community and foundation treasuries are kept separate, the remaining money are protected from exploitation.
The University of Tokyo will offer Metaverse courses.
Later this year, the University of Tokyo, popularly known as Todai, will offer a variety of Metaverse-based academic programmes.
According to a story published on Saturday by the local news source The Asahi Shimbun, the courses would be available to high school students as well as adults in the industry.
According to the article, the Metaverse study programmes will not be administered by their own faculty that confers degrees, but rather by Todai’s engineering department and engineering-related graduate schools. Students who successfully finish the courses will be awarded certificates.
The objective of Todai’s initiative is to solve the dearth of trained workers in “digital transformation” and “advanced technologies.”
In addition, university authorities underlined that learning in the Metaverse would make it possible for “anyone, regardless of age, gender, socioeconomic position, or location, to learn about engineering and computer science.”
Crypto and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) were not directly addressed, but blockchain-based platforms are expected to be discussed given the sector’s association with the Metaverse and the presence of major metaverse companies.
Students at junior high and high school will get an introduction to the space, as well as information on prospective career paths in engineering, science, and other relevant subjects. They will obtain the information via a combination of online and in-person sessions.
Online courses focusing on artificial intelligence (AI), next-generation communication technology, and entrepreneurial education will be made available to university students and those who are currently in the workforce.
As the absence of female representation in engineering has been acknowledged as a problem, efforts will also be made to recruit more women to the programmes.
The GameStop ‘Falling Man’ NFT tale best exemplifies the power of the people.
Recent inclusion of a nonfungible token (NFT) on GameStop’s marketplace sparked criticism in the NFT community. The listing garnered significant response from the community, prompting the marketplace to act within a day, demonstrating how a community can join together to right a wrong.
The “Falling Guy” NFT depicted a man in a spacesuit falling downward. The in issue NFT resembled the famed 9/11 photograph of a man falling to his death, which has since come to symbolise the fatal assaults. Many claimed that the NFT was imitating the 9/11 victim and infringing on the copyright of Richard Drew’s original photograph.
In a separate thread on the meme stock subreddit GME Meltdown, a member noted that the figure in the NFT is a representation of an independent artist’s 3D model of a Russian flying suit that was copied without permission.
Eventually, the GameStop team pulled down the NFT and prohibited the artist behind the artwork from minting on the site.
Aptos Labs obtains $150 million in funding, more than tripling its worth.
Aptos Labs, a creator of Layer-1 blockchain technology, has raised a $150 million investment round to pursue its Web3 goals, showing venture capital’s demand for crypto-focused firms.
The fundraising round was co-led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with Andreessen Horowitz, Apollo, Franklin Templeton, and Circle Ventures also participating. According to Bloomberg, the fundraising round resulted in a value of over $1 billion for the business as of March.
Former Meta workers Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching founded Aptos. The creators were also involved in Mark Zuckerberg’s unsuccessful Diem project. As reported by Cointelegraph, the Diem Association and its subsidiaries ceased operations in February of this year, with Meta selling the intellectual property and other assets of the project.
According to Bloomberg, Aptos’ blockchain utilises Move, Diem’s programming language, which Bloomberg reports makes transactions cheaper and more efficient. The blockchain startup Mysten Labs, which sprung from the ashes of Diem, also uses the Move programming language. In December 2021, Mysten Labs concluded a $36 million fundraising round.
According to Cointelegraph Research, venture capital companies spent $14.67 billion in the industry during the second quarter, essentially matching their pledges from the first quarter. Web3, a broad idea describing the subsequent version of the blockchain-powered internet, garnered the greatest attention.
Tesla announces a profit of $64 million on Bitcoin sales (Tesla making profit!).
Tesla’s decision to sell the majority of its Bitcoin (BTC) assets resulted in a substantial profit in the second quarter, despite the bear market in cryptocurrency prices.
Tesla recognised $170 million in impairment losses “derived from fluctuations in the carrying value” of its Bitcoin assets during the first half of 2022, according to a Form 10-Q filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). After selling 75% of its BTC holdings for USD in the second quarter, the business generated a $64 million profit.
During the second quarter, Tesla earned $2.27 per share on sales of $16.93 billion. Although profitability was lower than in the first quarter, it was higher than a year earlier. Nonetheless, increasing inflation and intensifying competition for battery cells had a negative effect on the company’s profitability.
According to Bitcoin Treasuries, the manufacturer of electric vehicles still has 10,800 BTC. At the current price of around $22,000 BTC, Tesla’s digital asset holdings are valued at approximately $237 million.
An impairment loss happens in finance when the fair value of an asset owned by a corporation falls below its carrying value.
Chipotle takes ‘buy the dip’ literally with new $200K crypto giveaway.
Chipotle, an American fast-casual food business, has launched an online game that gives consumers the opportunity to win more than $200,000 in cryptocurrency.
Chipotle announced on Monday that fans may use their rewards accounts to participate in its “Buy The Dip” and “Eat the Dip” game until July 31. Through the game, the organisation will distribute $45,000 in Bitcoin (BTC), $10,000 in Ether (ETH), $13,750 in Solana (SOL), $14,250 in Avalanche (AVAX), and $14,250 in Dogecoin (DOGE).
In April 2021, as part of a campaign for National Burrito Day, the restaurant chain handed away $100,000 in BTC. Chipotle said in June that its approximately 3,000 U.S. stores will accept 98 cryptocurrencies as payment through digital payment service Flexa.
As the space expanded, other prominent U.S. fast food businesses have hosted similar crypto giveaways. Burger King teamed with Robinhood in November 2021 to give out BTC, ETH, and DOGE as part of consumers’ orders. McDonalds’ China division launched a contest to award 188 nonfungible tokens to customers in honour of the company’s 31st anniversary, while its U.S. operations filed various trademark applications indicating a foray into the metaverse.
Closing
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