In this week’s newsletter, read about footballer Cristiano Ronaldo facing a lawsuit after promoting nonfungible tokens (NFTs) tied to crypto exchange Binance, and find out how an NFT collector thwarted a hacking attempt by a person impersonating a journalist. In other news, Azuki DAO is rebranding to Bean, game developer Square Enix announces an NFT collection, and one user claimed tokens worth $11 million in the recent Blur airdrop. 

Cristiano Ronaldo sued for promoting Binance, unregistered securities

Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo faces a class-action lawsuit for allegedly participating in the sale of unregistered securities in partnership with crypto exchange Binance. The famous football player entered a multiyear partnership with the exchange to promote NFT collections tied to Binance’s NFT-focused arm.  

The legal complaint argued that Ronaldo encouraged his millions of followers to invest using Binance and contributed to its growth. The plaintiffs also allege that Ronaldo’s NFT sales successfully promoted the exchange, leading to a 500% increase in searches after the first sale.

Continue reading

Asked to get a banana, a BAYC owner narrowly avoids a fake Forbes scam

Pseudonymous NFT trader “Crumz” avoided a scam that could have stolen NFTs from his stash. According to the trader, a person impersonating a Forbes journalist asked for an interview about the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection. 

During the interview, the scammer asked Crumz to click a button to allow them to record the interview and tried to distract him by asking him to say something resembling his BAYC NFT. The scammers took control of his screen, but Crumz thwarted the hacking attempt before he lost anything.

Continue reading

Azuki DAO rebrands to “Bean” as it drops lawsuit against founder

Azuki DAO, an unofficial decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) made for the NFT collection of the same name, announced it is rebranding to “Bean.” The DAO is also dropping its proposed lawsuit against Zagabond, the founder of Azuki. 

According to Azuki developers, the DAO will become a memecoin project and join the ecosystem of Blast, an Ethereum layer-2 platform. The developers also claimed that Bean has already secured a $10 million investment for its development and acceleration.

Continue reading

Square Enix announces auction dates for Symbiogenesis NFTs

Square Enix, the developer of popular game franchises like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, has started the auction of its Symbiogenesis NFTs. A social media announcement highlighted that the first batch’s schedule is from Nov. 27–28, while a second batch will go out from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4. There will also be a third batch of NFTs to hit the auctions on Dec. 2–3. 

Symbiogenesis is a blockchain game that Square Enix is currently developing. The game will feature Web3 elements such as Ethereum-based NFTs.

Continue reading

User claims $11 million in Blur token rewards at NFT marketplace’s season 2 airdrop

A user participating in the recent airdrop of the NFT marketplace Blur has claimed tokens worth around $11 million. A wallet with the ENS tag “hanwe.eth” claimed over 22 million Blur tokens in the NFT platform’s season two airdrop. The owner of the address celebrated on social media and posted their rewards for everyone to see.  

While some seemed happy with the results, NFT whale Jeffrey Hwang cursed at Blur after the airdrop, seemingly unhappy with the rewards. Hwang is known to have attempted what some consider the largest NFT dump, which aimed to generate more profits through the airdrop.

Continue reading

CHECK OUT COINTELEGRAPH’S NFT STEEZ PODCAST

Thanks for reading this digest of the week’s most notable developments in the NFT space. Come again next Wednesday for more reports and insights into this actively evolving space.

Azuki DAO, an unofficial community decentralized autonomous organization surrounding the namesake nonfungible token collection, has announced its rebranding to “Bean” as it drops a proposed lawsuit against the NFT collection’s founder, Zagabond, over a $39 million minting affair. 

In a statement sent to Cointelegraph, Azuki developers said the DAO will rebrand into a memecoin project and become part of the Ethereum layer-2 Blast ecosystem. Developers also claims that Bean has also secured $10 million from “prominent investors” for its development and acceleration within the Blast ecosystem.

The proposed Bean memecoin will have a total supply of 1 billion. Forty percent of tokens are allocated to its treasury, 50% to Azuki DAO members, and 10% to Azuki NFT creator Zagabond. Minting is only available to Azuki NFT holders, who must do so within 24 hours of the token’s launch or face “token burn.”

The Azuki NFT collection represents 10,000 anime-themed profile pictures (PFPs). In June, a second series of 10,000 PFPs in the Azuki collection, dubbed “Elementals,” was released by Zagabond. Immediately after release, however, users noticed the close resemblance of Elemental PFPs to Azuki PFPs, thereby leading to the dilution of the latter through an increase in supply.

The price of Azuki NFTs reportedly fell 44% in the immediate aftermath of Elementals’ release. The move also triggered a community lawsuit proposal launched by Azuki DAO against creator Zagabond. 

“Detailed information on financing and a roadmap for future developments will be disclosed shortly,” developers wrote. 

Godspeed @cz_binance pic.twitter.com/jIaCj43sx8

— ZAGABOND.ETH (@ZAGABOND) November 21, 2023

Related: AzukiDAO proposes to recover 20,000 ETH from Azuki founder ‘Zagabond’