• Ankr was the victim of a hack that cost the project losses of over $5 million.
• The team briskly patched the exploit within hours.
• Ankr says it will compensate all users for their losses and discontinue the affected token to prevent future occurrences.

A security breach nearly sent Ankr underwater, but the team’s timely intervention saved the day.

On Dec 1, Ankr identified a security breach on the project in which bad actors were able to gain internal access and steal tokens. According to a report by the team, the hackers were able to access the private developer key and modify the smart contract for aBNBc, Ankr’s BNB liquid staking token.

This modification gave the bad actors the power to create an unlimited amount of the token from thin air using an infinite bug. Over 60 trillion tokens were generated with the hackers converting the tokens to the USDC stablecoin.

A stitch in time saves nine

$5 million worth of USDC was moved off Binance Smart Chain to Ethereum before the transactions were flagged, potentially saving the project a fortune. Ankr noted in their report that they “alerted known off-ramps to implement their emergency plans’” which halted trading.

Extra steps were taken to mitigate the loss of funds, like using a new key to secure smart contracts and updating all systems to “temporarily pause the movement of the underlying collateral (BNB) to be safe.” The team noted that parties providing liquidity to decentralized exchanges supporting the affected tokens had been duly notified of the development.

“Ankr will purchase $5 million worth of BNB and use this to compensate the liquidity providers that have been affected by the exploit due to drainage of liquidity pools,” said Ankr in a statement. “We understand diluted aBNBc was speculatively traded after the exploit occurred, but we are only able to compensate LPs caught off guard by the event.”

Ankr says it will discontinue the affected tokens immediately, noting that it will use a snapshot to identify the affected liquid provider. The project allayed users’ fears by confirming that funds and underlying assets are safe and users “will retain their positions from before.”

Reddit’ NFT minting hits new high

Reddit’s nonfungible token (NFT) collection hit another milestone on Dec. 3 with a record 255,000 of its “avatars” minted in the one day.

The new minting record beat the previous all-time highs on Aug. 30 and 31, which saw just over 200,000 Reddit avatars minted each day.

The NFTs are primarily used on the social media platform as a users’ avatar and are created by a number of independent artists that use the platform.

At the time of the collection’s launch in July, it was widely seen as a way to boost mainstream adoption of blockchain technology as Reddit shied away from using crypto for purchases of the avatars and chose to call them digital “collectibles” instead of NFTs.

With the record mint day, Reddit’s Polygon (MATIC)-based NFTs now boast around 4.4 million in circulation, according to data from Dune Analytics.

However, despite the amounts minted, Dune data shows just over 40,000 Reddit avatar NFTs have been sold since their launch,  and there are around 3.7 million holders of avatars indicating that most choose to hold onto their NFT.

The sales volume of the collectibles recently hit an all-time high of $2.5 million on Oct. 24 across 1,991 buyers.

Some of the rarer Reddit NFTs have seen premium prices on secondary NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea with some of the most expensive selling for over $300, while the platform’s own marketplace sees prices of around $50.

EU went all out on a Metaverse party, barely anyone came

The European Union’s (EU’s) foreign aid department is understood to have dished out nearly $408,000 (€387,000) on a metaverse and hosted a party on Nov. 29 to celebrate, but only six people reportedly turned up.

Devex reporter Vince Chadwick tweeted a video on Nov. 29 showing his metaverse avatar attending the “gala” and said “after initial bemused chats with the roughly five other humans who showed up, I am alone.”

I’m here at the “gala” concert in the EU foreign aid dept’s €387k metaverse (designed to attract non politically engaged 18-35 year olds — see story below). After initial bemused chats with the roughly five other humans who showed up, I am alone. https://t.co/ChIHeXasQP pic.twitter.com/kZWIVlKmhL

— Vince Chadwick (@vchadw) November 29, 2022

“Is anybody out there?” reads one of the messages on the screen in the video. “The concert is just the same DJ spinning the same music,” another message says.

The EU-crafted metaverse was made to promote it’s “Global Gateway” initiative that aims to develop and build infrastructure in developing nations.

The metaverse, seemingly also named “Global Gateway”, was quietly launched in mid-October with a “depressing and embarrassing” promotional video according to an anonymous EU foreign aid department staff member that spoke to Devex.

Discover the new #GlobalGateway digital platform – https://t.co/DHAdsfwbA1

Our shared digital space is the perfect place to get to know new people and reflect on global issues to make a difference for our shared future. #WhoWeAre pic.twitter.com/IAA01vIYbo

— EU International Partnerships (@EU_Partnerships) October 13, 2022

According to an EU spokesperson the target audience for its metaverse is 18 to 35 year olds “who identify as neutral about the EU and are not particularly engaged in political issues,” and the promo video was “to intrigue that audience, primarily on TikTok and Instagram” and encourage them to engage with the campaign.

TimeX ‘Goes Ape’ with the BAYC

Watch manufacturer TimeX said on Dec. 1 it’s partnered with the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) NFT projects to create custom watches.

TimeX is creating 500 physical watches and matching “twin NFTs” that will allow Bored and Mutant Ape holders to customize a watch including its case, strap and etchings while, of course, featuring the owners’ NFT on the watch face.

We’re going bananas over the launch of our first customizable physical, digital and phygital timepiece in partnership with @CryptoVonDoom, @beijingdou, @Zeneca_33 @JulianGilliam, @TheMiamiApe, @TheeHustleHouse, @daz3d @Metabrands_pro and the @BoredApeYC community.

A Thread pic.twitter.com/sL2YPyNnwf

— Timex (@timex) December 1, 2022

The watches will be gated behind an NFT at the cost of 2 Ether (ETH), or around $2,500, with BAYC and MAYC holders then able to use the NFT to create a watch from mid-December that will ship in in the second quarter of 2023.

NFT sales increase for first time in 7 months

U.S. dollar-denominated NFT sales have managed to jump 16% in the month of November, bucking more than seven months of decline, according to data from Cryptoslam.

In November, NFT sales amounted to $534 million, up from October’s nearly $460.4 million.

It was the first month since April that NFT sales increased, January saw record NFT sales totaling $4.7 billion, while October was the slowest sales month in 2022.

Related: How NFT court summons could change the legal landscape

The increase in November is likely due to high-priced NFT sales, such as two BAYC NFTs that sold for close to $1 million each on Nov. 23 and 24.

Cryptoslam data shows over the past 30 days the top three NFT collections were BAYC, MAYC and Otherdeeds — all Yuga Labs-owned projects. The top BAYC collection has seen 30-day sales increase by 89.5% indicating that high-priced NFT sales could have driven November sales up.

Meanwhile, total transaction volume between October and November saw a 17.6% decrease.

More Nifty News

Internet browser Opera has created an NFT minting tool that allows users the ability to drag and drop media files into its application which will turn those files into NFTs by writing a smart contract and uploading them to a blockchain.

Coinbase has slammed Apple over the firm blocking the latest release of its crypto wallet app. Coinbase says Apple wanted it to disable NFT transactions until it could “collect 30% of the gas fee,” something Coinbase says is “clearly not possible” as Apple’s system “does not support crypto so we couldn’t comply even if we tried.”