Scoops of the Week 🍦

🍦Opensea Lawsuit over stolen NFT Policy

🍦Bored Ape Hacked and sold for $130,000

🍦GameStop Marketplace sold stolen games

🍦MLS Sign Bored Ape

Scoop’s Top 5 Tips to thrive in the NFT Bear market

What’s up Scoop Family? I am sure we are all on the same page with regards to the current state of the market, sure there are profitable mints and flips still happening but overall things are slow & we are probably all wondering when NFTs will run it back turbo. As we have mentioned previously, all markets go through cycles in order to sustain healthy growth & adoption. So don’t worry, the Scoop’s got you, by reading this article today you are one of the better ones, most market participants are sleeping right now. You can use this time to get ahead & get an edge. Every cloud has a silver lining. Here are 5 Top tips to thrive in the NFT Bear market.

1. Network like crazy

In huge bullish / growth periods there is more noise, more money & funding flying around. Founders & project leads are experiencing euphoria from their recent launch and may be sailing into the sunset on a yacht with newfound wealth. The point is and we will be frank, they may not have time to for you. In the bearish / crab-like markets we are experiencing at the moment you have a massive opportunity to network with future and current thought leaders in the NFT space, people are building and rely on those who are still here to gain feedback and shape the development of new projects & services. But how can we network we hear you cry… The best place to meet people in the NFT space is on Twitter & Discord. Join Twitter spaces & don’t be afraid to get on stage to ask a question, it’s nowhere near as scary as you think, and most are a lot quieter than in bull periods. You should also speak in your favorite project’s discords, share your opinion & reach out to project leads. It will take some time, though slowly but surely your NFT network will begin to expand exponentially.

2. Build a mastermind group

Now you have started your networking journey throughout the metaverse. You can build out your NFT mastermind group. Some of the Scoop team’s best friends have been forged in the metaverse. Mastermind groups are close-knit trusted support circles that share information as a hive mind. 5 minds are better than one in this space & 5 sets of eyeballs will find more ‘Alpha’ than just you. Once you have built a tight mastermind group through networking. You can set up your own channels for discussion using discord, Twitter group chat, Telegram, or even Whatsapp!

3. Educate Yourself & Learn new skills

The market is quieter right now, you have probably noticed yourself, that you are minting fewer projects & your internal FOMO meter isn’t shooting every 2 minutes. This is good. You now have time to reflect on what you did right and what you may like to improve on from the previous bull market. Right now, you don’t need to grind for WL spots or mint projects at 4am. Use this time to thoroughly research what previous successful projects did well & apply that knowledge when assessing new projects to invest your hard-earned cash into. Gain an understanding of areas you want to improve on, identify the gaps in your skill set, and put the work in to acquire those skills. This will set you massively for the next run & give you an edge against those who are sleeping right now.

4. Add value

When things are quieter, you, yes you have a louder voice. If you have an opinion & value to add, say it. This could be on Twitter Spaces, in the comment section of a thread, or by offering your services to a project. You have skills & knowledge that are valuable to someone. Why not add value to the NFT space today? It will reward you 10 fold.

5. DCA - Dollar Cost Average.

If you're not minting or holding any NFT projects right now, that’s ok. No position is still a position. Just by reading this article today, you are taking active participation in the NFT space. One skill that we cannot stress enough is the skill of patience and using that skill of patience to dollar cost average. $ETH is way off its all-time high right now and you can be quite certain that in years to come it will likely be more valuable in $ terms than it is today. Dollar-cost average affordable amounts into the market to acquire $ETH that is part of your long-term stack. $50 may not seem a lot right now, but over time, you will be surprised at how much you are able to acquire via this method.

Opensea Lawsuit over stolen NFT Policy

You’ll be accustomed to us informing you of issues surrounding Opensea…..well things might just heat up a bit more.

Jesse Halfon, an Attorney who specializes in NFTs has filed a lawsuit against Opensea regarding their stolen NFT policy.

The policy currently is that Opensea do not allow stolen NFTs to be sold on the marketplace which leads to stolen items being locked and unable to be sold once retrieved.

Many have asked to join the lawsuit effectively looking to create a class action suit however Opensea’s terms state that issues are dealt with on an individual basis so it looks like those wanting to join the suit will be unsuccessful.

Opensea are yet to respond to the claim.

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Scoops of the Week 🍦

Bored Ape Hacked and sold for $130,000

Speaking of hacks and theft unfortunately Opensea’s above policy looks to have been breached as Cameo’s CEO Steven Galanis was the victim of a hack which saw his Bored Ape being sold for $130,000.

The ape was not the only item that was stolen, hackers also got away with over $9k in ApeCoin, 3 Otherside plots, a Phanta Bear and 2 11 Captains Club giving a grand total of $200,000 stolen.

The reason for the hack is one our readers must be aware of as the hack occurred via his Apple iCloud account.

It’s been discovered that using the Metamask app on your mobile automatically leads to your seed phrase being backed onto your iCloud account and therefore if someone hacks your iCloud they can obtain your seed phrase.

This is not the first hack of this nature, in April, an iCloud hack led to $650,000 worth of crypto and NFTs being stolen.

We would like to remind of our guidance last week - having a backup cold wallet is a wise move. As this space continually evolves and we are seeing more crypto being exchanged there will be an increase in the number of hacks and certainly an increase in the sophistication in the process.

The team here at scoop use ledger for our cold wallets - we attach a link here for your consideration (this is not a paid ad)

GameStop Marketplace sold stolen games

Again, a marketplace not short of being in the headlines for the wrong reasons, GameStop find themselves right back in them.

Nathan Ello released a collection called NiFTy earning himself 8.4ETH in the first batch of sales. The issue is that Nathan did not have permission to use two of the games in the collection and it’s yet to be confirmed if he had authorization to use a further 3.

The collection has since been removed from the marketplace and Nathan’s account has been suspended however given the nature of the secondary market, items can still be purchased.

Given the horrific and justified backlash surrounding the 9/11 NFT, GameStop will need to get their act in order and fast otherwise it’ll be NFTStop.

MLS Sign Bored Ape

The transfer window is still open until 1st September and perhaps the biggest transfer of the summer has just happened……MLS have signed a Bored Ape.

The Bored Ape previously known as number 6045, has been re-named Striker and will be the first virtual Bored Ape athlete.

Striker will be making his virtual debut at the MLS All Stars Game on August 10th playing as…….a striker.

The Ape who is now destined for football / soccer greatness has a heavy transfer fee on his shoulders however….. he was initially bought for 8.45 ETH in 2021 and the purchase price was 100ETH for MLS.

We have high hopes for striker….we definitely fancy him to score at least twice on his debut.

Scoop’s Weekly Winner 🏆

And we said what about an NFT from Tiffany’s…..

Well the launch took place on the 5th August and to no one’s surprise it has been a success with the collection quickly selling out.

Just incase you missed it, here’s a recap of the launch and NFT itself:

The collection consisted of 250 items and could only be minted by CryptoPunks holders with each customer having the ability to purchase a maximum of 3 NFTiffs at the cost of 30 ETH per item.

Utility:

Anyone who purchased the NFTiff will receive a handmade custom designed pendant that contains 30 gemstones and or diamonds and a NFT digital artwork that resembles the final jewelry design as well as authenticating ownership. Also, the pendant will be accompanied by a 18k gold adjustable chain which contains 5 diamonds.

In their tweet confirming all items had sold out, they did say ….until the next mint so all hope of getting that unique blue in your NFT collection isn’t over yet.

For now, the company has netted $12.5m from the sale so we guess breakfast is on them.

REKT SECTION 😡

Imagine being outed by the Treasury for your platform’s role in laundering funds stolen in major hacks…..even worse the platform was used a by North Korea hacking group in one of the largest hack we have witnessed, the Axie Infitiy hack which led to $625m being stolen in March.

Tornado Cash…..welcome to REKT.

On Monday morning, the US Treasury released a statement banning all Americans from using the platform and all assets that are currently invested via the platform have been frozen which is estimated to be at $437m.

In terms of the sanctions they will be for those with Ethereum addresses associated with Tornado cash. Following the announcement, Circle immediately froze the USDC in those accounts regardless of legitimate purpose.

The statement went on to state how more than $7bn has been laundered via the platform since 2019.

This isn’t the first time the Treasury has imposed sanctions on a currency mixer…..back in May Blender received the same treatment.

This also doesn’t seem to be the last target either as the following statement was released from Secretary Antony Blinken:

“We’ll continue to aggressively pursue actions against currency mixers laundering virtual currency for criminals. Today, the Treasury sanctioned virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, which has been used to launder money for a U.S.-sanctioned DPRK state-sponsored cyber hacking group.”

Disclaimer

The NFT Scoop newsletter or podcast is not financial advice, it is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only.

NFT’s can be highly illiquid markets, causing sharp drops in prices due to changes in narratives and trends.

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