Meta announces plans to stop working on NFTs

Meta is ditching its pursuit of NFTs as the company looks to prioritize, according to Stephane Kasriel, head of commerce and financial technologies at Meta.  “Some product news: across the...

DegenZoo used AI to create Logan Paul’s NFT game without him

It started with an angry tweet. “It takes 30 days to build CryptoZoo. To prove that I will build: CryptoPoo $POO in less,” tweeted Chris Zaknun, the CEO of crypto fundraising platform DAO Maker,...

Blur captures 84% of ETH-based NFT transactions in first week of March

If you were an Ethereum-based NFT bought or sold in the first week of March, there’s an 84% chance that you changed hands on the Blur marketplace, according to data from The Block. As rece...

Tensor — the ‘Blur of Solana’ — raises $3 million in seed funding

Tensor, which brands itself as “the Blur of Solana,” raised $3 million in a seed funding round. Placeholder VC led the round, with Solana Ventures, Alliance DAO, Big Brain Holdings, ...

Gordon Ramsay’s Sandbox avatar NFTs coming to the metaverse

Lovably cantankerous head of “Hell’s Kitchen” Gordon Ramsay is getting the full blockchain treatment. Metaverse gaming platform The Sandbox announced that Ramsay — a Michelin star chef and main draw o...

Hermes seeks court injunction to halt sales of MetaBirkin NFTs: Reuters

Luxury fashion brand Hermès is asking a federal court to block sales of non-fungible tokens based on its popular Birkin bag, according to Reuters. Last month, a New York jury ruled digital artis...

Trader makes error in XMON unlock strategy — loses 100% of trade in slippage

A crypto user was sandwich attacked for effectively the entire amount of their token swap after failing to implement slippage protection into their custom contract. They ended up swapping $10,000 for ...

NFT finance protocol Insrt raises $2.2 million in SAFT round

Published 30 minutes earlier on Insrt Labs, the core contributor of the Insrt Finance protocol, raised $2.2 million in a pre-seed funding round. Hashkey Capital and Infinite Capital co-led the r...

Decentralized music platform Audius names Sirius XM/Pandora exec as chief business officer

Decentralized music platform Audius named Shamal Ranasinghe as chief business officer. In the newly created position, Ranasinghe will oversee the company’s relationship with the music industry, ...

NBA Top Shot CEO’s decadent lifestyle, ‘public shaming’ led to toxic culture as Dapper flails

Last May, Grammy award-winning DJ Diplo grabbed headlines after a video showed him struggling to pass security and get into a yacht party held during the Cannes Film Festival. Although meant to perfor...

Starbucks’s web3 Odyssey is seeing early signs of success, BofA says

Starbucks’s Odyssey program, an extension of Starbucks Rewards that seeks to expand brand loyalty in the virtual world, is seeing encouraging signs of early success, Bank of America said.  ...

Deloitte, Sinclair Broadcast launching new sports metaverse experience

Deloitte and Sinclair Broadcast Group said they’ll be launching a new metaverse sports fan community experience leveraging Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to “enhance the ways in which fan...

Tokenized Texan house listed for sale on Solana

A company called Homebase listed a property-backed NFT on Solana, allowing consumers to invest in a tokenized house.  Buying a share of the three-bed house in McAllen, Texas — the first on the p...

Yuga Labs drops bitcoin-based NFT collection TwelveFold

Web3 • February 27, 2023, 6:00PM EST Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, announced the release of a new bitcoin-based NFT collection called TwelveFold. The collection will consis...

Dookey Dash’s top prize sells for $1.6 million, less than half original goal, says winning gamer

Professional gamer and Twitch streamer Kyle Jackson said he sold the digital “key” he won playing Yuga Labs’ video game Dookey Dash for a whopping 1,000 eth, which is about $1.6 million. Jackson, more...

NFT weekly trading volume on Ethereum rises to highest level since May

Web3 • February 27, 2023, 2:19PM EST The lull in NFT activity is showing signs of subsiding with weekly trading level on Ethereum last week hitting its highest level since May, according to data from ...

Blur, ETHDenver and Sam Bankman-Fried

One of the biggest crypto stories this past week was the explosion of trading volumes on NFT marketplace Blur, which far outpaced rival OpenSea. The big question is whether this activity will find a s...

Dapper Labs said to lay off 20% more of its full-time employees

Less than four months after parting ways with more than 20% of its employees, Dapper Labs decided to let another 20% of full-time staff go, according to a document obtained by The Block. In an e...

Collectors spend $280,000 in Ethereum fees to mint 28,000 Coinbase NFTs

Crypto fans have cumulatively spent $280,000 in transaction fees to mint more than 28,000 Coinbase NFTs on Ethereum. The NFTs were available to be minted for free for those who wanted to mark the test...

3AC’s NFT collection to be put up for sale by liquidator

Deals • February 23, 2023, 1:40AM EST A collection of prized NFTs purchased by Three Arrows Capital (3AC), the failed crypto hedge fund, will soon be put up for sale. 3AC’s liquidators, Teneo, n...

Indian web3 gaming studio Kratos raises seed round at $150M valuation, acquires IndiGG

Kratos Studios, a web3 gaming startup based in India, reached a valuation of $150 million in a seed funding round of $20 million. Accel led the round, and other investors included Prosus Venture...

Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot Moments NFTs are securities, federal judge rules

Legal • February 22, 2023, 1:26PM EST NBA Top Shot Moments NFTs meet the requirements to be considered a security, a federal judge said in a court filing on Wednesday, giving the green light to a clas...

Solana Spaces gives fans final week to snag free merch ahead of shut down in Miami, NYC

Solana Spaces is giving fans a final week to snag free merchandise before it shuts down stores after hosting more than 75,000 people and nearly 50 events. “We’ve made the difficult decisio...

Animoca Brands invests in EthSign to back its new product TokenTable

Animoca Brands, a web3 investor focused on gaming and metaverse, invested an undisclosed amount in EthSign, a decentralized electronic signature platform. The investment will help EthSign contin...

Yield Guild Games raising $75 million venture fund to double down on web3 gaming

Yield Guild Games (YGG), a top web3 gaming guild, is entering the venture capital space, raising $75 million for its first fund. “The fund’s mandate is to invest in early-stage token...

OpenSea makes changes to fees following tension with Blur

OpenSea is dropping fees, citing a shift in the NFT ecosystem and coming shortly after Blur made its case for creators to list on its platform rather than OpenSea. OpenSea, the largest NFT marke...

Fox Entertainment’s ‘Masked Singer’ show launches token-gated fan experience

Fox Entertainment and its web3 arm Blockchain Creative Labs are unveiling a new token-gated fan experience for the network’s hit singing competition show “The Masked Singer.”Holders of a non-fun...

Crypto prices higher, Blur token crosses $1 billion in volume in under 24 hours

Markets • February 15, 2023, 1:46PM EST Crypto prices were up across the board, while Blur’s native token clocked huge volumes on its first day of trading.  Bitcoin was up 3.3% over the pa...

Gamers spent nearly 50 billion hours on Roblox in 2022

Metaverse enthusiasts have something to cheer about, with Roblox growing on all fronts.  Not only did Roblox increase its user numbers and the size of its platform’s internal economy in 2022, players ...

Scammers nab NFT’s from ecosystem of Super Bowl advertiser on game day: PeckShield

Limit Break took to one of the biggest stages in television on Sunday to promote a new NFT collection belonging to its anime-styled DigiDaigaku brand during the Super Bowl. Far from the spotlight a sc...

Blockchain gaming’s struggles continue as active users drop 30% in three months: Messari

Web3 gaming has been a bright spot in an otherwise down year for an industry that has seen funding dry up. That might not be the case for much longer if interest in blockchain gaming continues to wane...

Future of the metaverse and commerce will likely be a centralized dystopia

Episode 9 of Season 5 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Punk6529. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher...