NFT News Roundup – 30/04/22

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It’s Saturday, and that means we wade through the wild and wacky waters of the world of NFTs, separating the sense from the opposite of sense as we pick out the headline events. Fancy a swim?

Apes, Dogs, and More Go Missing in Bored Ape Insta Hack

The Bored Ape Yacht Club had its social media account compromised for the second time in a month this week, with hackers able to use the project’s Instagram account (and the excitement building up over the Otherside metaverse project) to steal $2.5 million worth of NFTs.

The hackers posted a mint link for YugaLabs’ Otherside airdrop (a couple of days early, it’s worth noting), but the link led to a phishing website, where 134 people who entered their wallet details saw their NFTs, including valuable Bored Apes and Bored Ape Kennel Club items, stolen.

Yuga Labs absolved themselves of blame, saying the account was as secure as it could have been, but that’s no solace to those who were tricked into handing over the contents of their wallets.

This morning, the official BAYC Instagram account was hacked. The hacker posted a fraudulent link to a copycat of the BAYC website with a fake Airdrop, where users were prompted to sign a ‘safeTransferFrom’ transaction. This transferred their assets to the scammer’s wallet.

— Bored Ape Yacht Club (@BoredApeYC) April 25, 2022

YugaLabs is Ready to Launch “Otherside” Metaverse

If you hadn’t already guessed, Yuga Labs is launching its much-anticipated metaverse offering Otherside today. Details haven’t been released ahead of the launch, with only hints and tips offered to date. We do know however that the Otherside is an MMORPG-style world for NFTs to live, socialize, and play, with plots of land likely to surge in value once the airdrop to BAYC holders is complete.

If you’re not a Bored Ape holder/fan, we wouldn’t recommend you bother with crypto Twitter for a few days.

The adventure begins. Otherside. 4/30, 12pm ET.

P.S. Otherside Discord is open: https://t.co/XkAcDmFij8 https://t.co/A8Jm5znufD

— OthersideMeta (@Otherside__Meta) April 23, 2022

NFL Commemorates 2022 Draft With New NFT Series

The NFL this week launched the “2022 NFT Draft”, an NFT collection to celebrate the inaugural draft on April 28th. The collection, which features 52 collectible NFTs dedicated to the league’s 32 teams, was launched on the NFL’s virtual commemorative ticket NFT marketplace.

The NFTs sport a French playing cards aesthetic and are available on the NFL’s Polygon-based NFT Marketplace for $52 apiece. Aside from purchasing them, some lucky fans will also get their hands on the NFTs when they are distributed during NFT games, although presumably not through a t-shirt cannon.

You can purchase your 2022 Draft NFTs here.

OpenSea Acquires Gem

The world’s leading NFT marketplace, OpenSea, this week acquired the NFT marketplace aggregation platform Gem in order to beef up its analytics and functionality game.

The goal of the acquisition is for OpenSea to incorporate Gem’s innovative features into its platform, such as enabling users to purchase many NFTs from various platforms in one transaction, Gem’s analytical tools, and a rarity-based ranking system.

According to OpenSea, Gem will “continue operating independently from OpenSea as a stand-alone product and brand” with OpenSea bringing “key Gem features to OpenSea to make buying NFTs seamless and delightful for every experience level.”

Delightful.

1/ Exciting news!

To invest in the “pro” community and continue improving the OpenSea experience, we’re excited to share that we’ve acquired @gemxyz !

Read more in the official announcement blog, and below 👇https://t.co/IBn38f2d3U

— OpenSea (@opensea) April 25, 2022