👹 Fear and Reveling in Goblintown: A Savage Journey into NFT Land

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we’re covering today:

News

• Three Arrows Ghosts Kyber Network As Threats of Legal Action Fly
• Harmony Hit by $100M Hack in Latest Exploit of Cross-Chain Bridges
• Solana to Develop Smartphone to Speed Web3 Adoption
• Hackers Step Up Attempts to Hijack DeFi Websites

NFT News

• Fear and Reveling in Goblintown: A Savage Journey into NFT Land
• Pharrell Williams Makes NFT Fans Happy with Doodles Move

Podcast

🎙Listen to this week’s podcast episode with Gmoney here:

Video

• The Open Metaverse Show: NFT IP is the frontline for the soul of digital assets feat. fity.eth and fringe

Elsewhere

• Coinbase rolls out Polygon support for transfers of ETH, USDC: The Block
• GitHub users respond to Gillibrand-Lummis bill with 'Bitcoin bill' idea: CoinTelegraph
• A Note on Bailouts and Crypto Leverage: Binance Blog
• Digital Identity opening at the #SuperRareGallery: SuperRare

Trending in The Defiant

• Creditor Slaps Three Arrows With Ultimatum to Pay $658M in Debt or Face Default
• Solend and Mango Markets Team Up to Handle Whale’s $207M Debt
• Crypto May be Down But Thiel, Andreessen, and Cuban Still Love NFTs

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).

Subscribe now

🙌 Together with:

• Eden Rocket RPC, providing the fastest private transactions on Ethereum (90%+ hashrate). Trade better anywhere on Ethereum with Eden Rocket RPC.
• ZetaChain is the first public L1 blockchain that natively connects with any chain and layer including Bitcoin and Dogecoin without wrapping or bridging assets. Dive into the docs to start building the future of multichain.
• dYdX Grants is powering the future of dYdX through community grants. Join us to build on top of the largest decentralized perpetuals exchange!

NFT Saga

👹 Fear and Reveling in Goblintown: A Savage Journey into NFT Land

An After Hours Odyssey Through NFT.NYC Reveals Pyramids, McGoblinBurgers, and a Hefty Dose of Optimism

By Aleksandar Gilbert

MYTHICAL Just before midnight in Hell’s Kitchen, we snuck out the backdoor at Terminal 5 and boarded a slapdash, wooden bus befitting mythical creatures associated with dirt, bugs, and the macabre. We were, after all, among the “VERY few” who’d been chosen to go down, down to Goblintown.

LAIR But the interior was more college dorm than earthen lair, strung with Christmas lights, the walls decorated with a mishmash of stickers and the ceiling sprayed with graffiti. The occupants, kids, really, sat almost one on top of the other, proud of what they’d just accomplished and excited about what would come next. One of them was seemingly passed out beside a mattress in the back.

CREATIVE They were the creative minds behind IlluminatiNFT and the Goblintown NFT collection, the latter a computer-generated collection of charmingly hideous goblins that, almost immediately after their debut last month, began trading for thousands of dollars a pop. Their guests at Terminal 5 in New York that night were treated to a mysterious, interactive art exhibit that climaxed with a Cirque du Soleil-esque performance.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Three Arrows

😡 Three Arrows Ghosts Kyber Network As Threats of Legal Action Fly

Latest Web3 Team to Reveal its Exposure to Ailing Hedge Fund

By Samuel Haig

NEWS Kyber Network has become the latest web3 team to reveal that the struggling hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) was managing a portion of its treasury.

DRAMA On June 23, Kyber tweeted that “a small portion” of its treasury was being managed by Three Arrows. It said the two firms had built a relationship over three years, stating the drama surrounding Three Arrows caught it off guard.

WALLETS Kyber is a decentralized liquidity aggregator that powers token swaps for third-party dApps, wallets, and protocols. The project has a market cap of $145.8M, ranking 196th among crypto projects, according to CoinGecko.

LEGAL ACTION Loi Luu, Kyber’s co-founder, said attempts to communicate with Three Arrows have not been recipwith them is a small portion of our treasury but they lost all of our trust & relationship with them, which was built up over three or four years,” Luu tweeted. “We are taking legal action.”

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Sponsored Post

Strong Fundamentals, Higher Insurance

In today’s market conditions, uncertainty can be overwhelming. That’s why having a strong fundamental layer as a base for our business model has always been essential for Nexo. Strict over-collateralized lending, a real-time audit, prudent risk management, global licensing, and fully-automated processes, are the pillars that ensure the robustness of our products and the safety of your funds at all times.

As a security-first platform, we recently increased our total insurance on custodial assets to $775 million. These additional protections come through our years-long collaborations with BitGo, Ledger Vault, Bakkt, and other industry-renowned custodians via the most prestigious underwriters, including Lloyd’s of London, and Marsh & Arch.

Nexo’s fundamentals are in place to keep your funds safe and to provide you with confidence that regardless of market conditions you can rely on your assets. We urge you to read more about these features and our sustainable practices on our Security page.

Exploits

🥷🏻 Harmony Hit by $100M Hack in Latest Exploit of Cross-Chain Bridges

By Samuel Haig

STOLEN FUNDS Cross-chain bridges are continuing to prove themselves as DeFi’s weakest link. On June 23, Harmony, a Layer 1 blockchain, said it identified an exploit worth roughly $100M targeting its Horizon bridge. The Harmony team has begun working with “national authorities and forensic specialists” to identify the hacker and attempt to retrieve the stolen funds. Harmony is based in California.

LOSING FUNDS Harmony halted the operation of its Horizon bridge to stop users from losing more funds, and has notified centralized exchanges of the exploit to prevent the hacker from converting the stolen assets. It said its trustless BTC bridge has not been impacted as assets are stored in decentralized vaults.

BRIDGE Horizon’s bridge facilitates asset transfers between Harmony and the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain networks. The hacker stole Ethereum, Wrapped Ether, Wrapped Bitcoin, Binance Coin, Aave, Sushi, Frax Share, and AAG, in addition to stablecoins Dai, Tether, USD Coin, Binance USD, and Frax.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Mobile Web3

🤳🏽 Solana to Develop Smartphone to Speed Web3 Adoption

Audacious Move to Build Handset Would Give Solana a Mobile Payment App

By Owen Fernau

TELEPHONE In an audacious move to jump-start web3 adoption, Solana announced on June 23 it is developing a smartphone.

SAGA Called Saga, the smartphone is part of Solana’s new mobile-first effort which the company is calling Solana Mobile Stack (SMS). And 829 of the phones have already been pre-ordered as of June 23, according to a Dune Analytics query.

BLOCKERS “It’s time for web3 devs to start building for mobile usage rather than around mobile usage,” wrote Solana’s co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko on the launch. “The blockers for achieving this goal are clear: The appstore policies of Google and Apples haven’t evolved for web3.”

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Exploits

💥 Hackers Step Up Attempts to Hijack DeFi Websites

Convex's Domain Name Server Targeted in Latest Spoofing Exploit

By Samuel Haig

TARGETED Hackers are increasingly targeting the front-end websites of DeFi protocols in a bid to steal users’ funds. Convex Finance, a protocol offering boosted rewards for Curve liquidity providers and stakers, is urging users to be diligent in checking the addresses for contract approvals after its website was hijacked on Thursday.

SPOOFING Convex is the sixth-largest DeFi protocol with a total value locked (TVL) of $3B, despite TVL dropping 6% over the past 24 hours, according to DeFi Llama. On June 23, angel investor Alexintosh tweeted that Convex Finance was asking users to approve an unverified smart contract address, suggesting a hacker may have infiltrated Convex Finance’s website to execute a DNS (domain name server) spoofing attack.

IP ADDRESS Domain Name Servers allow users to access websites via simple text-based web addresses instead of typing out the exact IP address of each website they wish to visit, making the internet easier to use.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

NFT Roundup

😁 Pharrell Williams Makes NFT Fans Happy with Doodles Move

Rapper Caps Big Week for NFTs with Music Push

By yyctrader

NEWS Rapper and entrepreneur Pharrell Williams is diving headlong into web3. The Doodles NFT project announced that he’s coming on board as its chief brand officer at an event held during the NFT.NYC conference on June 22.

DOODLES RECORDS “We’re going to build from the core community outward and bring Doodles to new heights, new levels,” the entertainer said via video at the holders-only event. The project is planning a foray into music NFTs, with Pharrell slated to produce an album titled “Doodles Records: Volume 1”, which will be sold as NFTs but also made available for streaming on various platforms.

BLOCKCHAIN Doodles also unveiled plans for a new NFT collection at the event. CEO Julian Holguin, who joined the project in May after an impressive tenure at Billboard, said that the new collection will be far larger than the original collection of 10,000 avatars. It will be launched on a yet to be specified “more accessible” blockchain.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

The Tube

📺 The Open Metaverse Show: NFT IP is the frontline for the soul of digital assets feat. fity.eth and fringe

Shoutout

Web3 with a16zis a new podcast about the next internet, from a16z crypto. Click here to listen now.

We know you’ve been hit over the head with discussions on web3 this year, which is why we’re so excited to recommend the definitive podcast for understanding and going deeper on crypto and web3.

It is hosted by Sonal Chokshi, former showrunner and longtime host of the a16z Podcast; along with frequent guest appearances and hosting by Chris Dixon.

Elsewhere

🔗 Coinbase rolls out Polygon support for transfers of ETH, USDC: The Block

Coinbase customers over the next month will be able to send and receive crypto on Polygon.

🔗 GitHub users respond to Gillibrand-Lummis bill with 'Bitcoin bill' idea: CoinTelegraph

Now, every interested user has a chance to leave their mark on a crypto bill that could define industry guidelines in the United States in the near future: the Responsible Financial Innovation Act (RFIA).

🔗 A Note on Bailouts and Crypto Leverage: Binance Blog

As you all know, current market conditions are tough. With our position as one of the largest industry players with healthy cash reserves, we have a duty to protect users. We also have a responsibility to help industry players survive and hopefully thrive.

SuperRare 💎 @SuperRareDigital Identity opening at the #SuperRareGallery 💎 Check it out in person and online superrare.com/features/digit…4:29 PM ∙ Jun 23, 202287Likes9Retweets

Trending in The Defiant

• Creditor Slaps Three Arrows With Ultimatum to Pay $658M in Debt or Face DefaultThree Arrows Capital has until June 27 to cough up $658M or it will be pushed into default by a lender that is running out of patience. That’s the latest challenge the embattled $10B hedge fund is confronting as its vast loanbook goes sideways under pressure from the historic crash in cryptocurrencies.
• Solend and Mango Markets Team Up to Handle Whale’s $207M DebtRisky debt is spreading across Solana’s DeFi ecosystem as the drama around a whale and Solend shifts into a new phase. Solend, the top lending protocol on Solana, has agreed with rival, Mango Markets, to share the debts of its largest user — an unidentified whale holding $207.3M of SOL, according to governance proposals.
• Crypto May be Down But Thiel, Andreessen, and Cuban Still Love NFTsVenture capitalists are famed for being patient. It often takes more than a decade for them to realize gains from their moves. That may be why 1confirmation, a venture firm backed by Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Mark Cuban, launched a $100M fund to double down on NFTs during the worst bear market in crypto in four years.🧑‍💻 ✍️ Stories in The Defiant are written by Owen Fernau, Aleksandar Gilbert, Claire Gu, Samuel Haig, Jason Levin, and yyctrader, and edited by Edward Robinson, yyctrader and Camila Russo. Videos were produced by Robin Schmidt, Daniel Flynn, and Alp Gasimov. Podcast was led by Camila, edited by Alp.Subscribe nowThe 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. Sign up to learn more and keep up on the latest, 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.