After being hospitalized for digestion issues after selling farts in a jar (really), a former 90 Day Fiancé star turns to NFTs
Stephanie Matto, who starred on season 6 of the reality show 90 Day Fiancé, has turned to some weird moneymaking schemes following her TV career. For a time, she claims she was making more than $50,000 a week selling "farts in a jar" for $1,000 each — until she was hospitalized for a health scare after a particularly fiber-heavy meal. She now is trying to sell her farts as "digital artworks on the blockchain" for a bit under $200 each, sans any physical component. At least you got a jar for your money before.
The Sunflower Farmers blockchain game DDoSes the Polygon blockchain for several days
Sunflower Farm, a play-to-earn farming game on the Polygon network, contributed to massive slowdowns and a spike in gas fees on the Polygon blockchain. Heavy bot usage and a game design where practically every action (including saving the game, using a tool, harvesting something) required a blockchain transaction flooded the Polygon blockchain with more traffic than it could handle, and spiked gas fees for a given transaction from around 30 gwei up to more than 1000. This event casts some doubt on Polygon's claims it can handle up to 65,000 transactions per second — in reality it averages about 85 transactions per second and so presumably should have had a lot of wiggle room for even a pretty major increase in transactions.
ArbixFinance appears to rug pull, making off with at least $10 million
Yield farming platform ArbixFinance was drained of at least $10 million, with some reporting amounts up to $32 million. Some optimistic users hoped it was a glitch, but the fact that the formerly-active @ArbixFinance Twitter account disappeared along with their website as the funds were being drained points to a rugpull. The platform had previously been audited and approved by CertiK in November, lending the project credibility in the eyes of prospective users.
Samsung announces its new smart TVs will include an NFT marketplace
If trying to type in the name of a movie on Netflix with a TV remote isn't painful enough for them, now people will be able to try using their TV to do due diligence into whether or not they're about to get scammed.
Crypto gambling service Polymarket shut down and fined $1.4 million by the U.S. CFTC
Although Polymarket was nominally "decentralized", it wasn't so decentralized that the CFTC couldn't fine its New York-based parent company for operating an unregistered market and order them to shut it down. Polymarket previously allowed people to bet cryptocurrency on the outcomes of various events including elections, COVID-19 case spikes, and sports games.
Matt Damon stars in a truly cringeworthy ad for Crypto.com
"Fortune favors the brave", said Matt Damon as he walked past images of mountain climbers, the Wright brothers, and astronauts. "History is filled with 'almosts'. With those who almost adventured, who almost achieved, but ultimately for them it proved to be too much. Then, there are others — the ones who embrace the moment and commit." Evidently the point of the ad was that the "brave" people who "commit" to pouring their money into crypto will make history, and granted that will likely be true, though it is also likely it will not be for the reason Mr. Damon would like you to believe.
Blockchain game CryptoBike apparently rugpulls only days after launch
A Vietnamese play-to-earn game called CryptoBike became popular shortly after its December 25 launch, soaring to around $41.6 million in daily trading volume. However, on January 1, the CryptoBike token CB suddenly plunged in value from $0.81 to $0.019 as 6 million CB were sold, apparently by the project's development team. The team also reportedly blocked people from commenting on the incident in the project's Telegram channel, and took down the project's website.
- "CryptoBike showing signs of scam", Sài Gòn Giải Phóng
- "Dự án game NFT Việt bị nhà đầu tư 'săn lùng' ra cả địa chỉ giả do dùng chiêu cho chiếm đoạt 1,4 tỷ USD rồi bỏ trốn", Diễn đàn Doanh nghiệp
Some of Tinyman's liquidity pools are drained of around $3 million
Tinyman, a defi platform that bills itself as "decentralized, secure trading", had all liquidity drained from its goBTC and goETH pools after an attacker found a bug in their smart contracts. Liquidity throughout Tinyman dropped from about $43 million to around $20 million within hours of the attack, though the platform says they believe that most of this money was withdrawn by its rightful owners and not stolen. Tinyman asked users to remove liquidity from all pools while they work to patch their smart contracts, and announced they would reimburse affected users.
NFT collector loses $38,000 in what he believes is an OpenSea or Rarible glitch
Carson Turner accused ACYCapital of "exploiting @BoredApeYC through a glitch in @rarible" after they bought his Bored Ape NFT that he had listed for sale (and which he has apparently dubbed "Joe RogApe", cringe). Evidently, if a person transfers an NFT that is listed for sale on OpenSea out of their wallet and back again, it appears not to be for sale despite still being available to buyers. Some people have mistakenly thought they could use this "hack" to delist NFTs if they change their mind about selling them, in order to avoid the gas fees associated with canceling a sale. This "glitch" resulted in Turner's Bored Ape #2643 being bought even though he thought it was no longer for sale, and he ended up spending 10 ETH (about $38,000) to get it back. Twitter user lexomis wrote, "On the human side this kinda is a bummer but it isn't a hack or theft or an exploit. It's being your own bank level stuff. To be your own bank requires you to understand a lot of these nuances...." It's hard for me to feel too bad for Turner, though, given he found himself with $1.1 million after "winning the NFT lottery" in August.
Digiconomist reports that Bitcoin consumed about as much energy in 2021 as the whole country of Argentina
Digiconomist released numbers for 2021, showing that during 2021, Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total — comparable to the energy consumption of Argentina. The report also claims that Bitcoin was responsible for 0.54% of global electricity consumption, and consumed about 89% more energy in 2021 than in the previous year.