The cryptocurrency analysis firm, Elliptic recently published a report claiming that the total money lost to NFT theft in the last 12 months exceeds $100 million in total. The firm further went on to state that the average theft amount per scam stood close to $300,000. Moreover, the findings also mention that 52% of those involved in these activities turned to the service, Tornado Cash to launder their proceeds, in an untraceable manner. Tornado Cash was placed on a US sanctions list earlier this month.
Pavel Durov, who is the founder of the widely popular messaging service, Telegram, has come up with a bold suggestion that has captured the attention of the NFT markets. He has put forward the idea of smart contracts, similar to the concept of NFTs, allowing an auctioning of usernames to potential buyers. A project of such a nature would well be within the scope of the company’s expertise, especially since the company had earlier designed The Open Network (TON). TON is a level-1 blockchain application, which allows users to acquire human-readable names for their digital wallets.
The once highly popular NFT market, GameStop NFT, has been seeing a dismal plunge in revenues derived from non-fungible tokens. The past 24 hours have seen NFT sales total less than $167,000, delivering GameStop fee earnings of a mere $3,700. Just a month ago, in mid-July, the company was seeing daily revenue figures of almost $2 million, netting in fees of $45,000 a day. This understandably ties into the wider pessimism seen across all classes of digital asset markets, amidst fear and uncertainty.
NFTs to Watch
Bored Ape Yacht Club
The Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT by YugaLabs has everyone’s heads turned, given its impressive 44% daily rise, despite a wider climate of fear and pessimism. The collection holds 10,000 unique NFTs of the Bored Ape theme, which are personalized to match a range of personality types and allows expression of self-identity. These NFTs further function as Yacht Club membership cards, which grant its owners a range of perks and privileges.
Mutant Ape Yacht Club
The second NFT collection to look out for, which is selling out like hotcakes is also by YugaLabs and is the infamous, Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. This NFT builds on the wild popularity of the Bored Ape collection, and offers mutation versions, with tokens portraying original apes. These versions however saw exposure to a vial of mutant serum. This collection holds 20,000 unique NFTs, with almost 13,000 individual owners. Given the interest surrounding the collection, prices jumped by a remarkable 65% in the last 24 hours alone.