The NFT space can feel like information overload at times, so we’ve cut through the noise to deliver you a curated dose of what matters most. Your all-in-one weekly companion.
Headline News - Over 300 NFTs & $400K ETH Stolen In Premint Hack
Ethereum’s been “giga mooning”, Premint was compromised, OpenSea looks to lay off 20% of staff and announces a Solana Launchpad; Rarible integrates Solana NFTs, a CryptoPunk owner sold at a $7M loss (but there’s a catch), and there’s talk that the NFT market could be worth $231B by 2030. These stories and more can be found in the ‘Curated News’ section below.
With Ethereum up ~50% compared to lows of the past 10 days, you’d think the NFT space would be in a buoyant mood. Unfortunately, this positive news has been overshadowed by the seemingly ever-present threat of hackers. With the potential of attacks looming large, the NFT community has been on high alert this past week.
On 17th July (time-zone dependant), Premint, a leading community-building tool, was compromised. Unsuspecting users were being duped into signing malicious transactions providing the hackers with the ability to drain their wallets. For an in-depth article on this story, please click here.
Two days later, on the 19th July, Yuga Labs tweeted the following:
Within roughly 24hrs of this tweet, Zeneca_33’s Twitter account was hacked. Control over the account was regained quickly, but I fear we’ve much more of this kind of thing to come.
Today, Premint announced it will return $500k USD in ETH to victims of their attack. For the full story on this, please click here.
Remain vigilant everyone, and if you’re new to the space, check out this weeks ‘Talking Point’ section where we recap the basic security measures the NFT community should have in place to reduce vulnerability to attacks.
Curated News - the best bits of the past week
BIGGEST NFT Sale: CryptoPunk #4156 for 2,690ETH (Top 10 Sales this week were ALL CryptoPunks)
Christie's launches venture fund aimed at Web3 and blockchain investments
CryptoPunks NFT Owner Sells for $7 Million Loss—But There’s a Catch
Dubai Introduces Virtual Assets Laws Concerning NFTs and Crypto
Amazon.eth ENS domain owner disregards 1M USDC buyout offer on OpenSea
After a recent successful tech demo, Otherside released their LitePaper
NFT market worth $231B by 2030? Report projects big growth for sector
OpenSea co-founder and CEO tweeted that they will be cutting staff by ~20%
Crypto recaptures $1 trillion market cap: BTC hits $22K, ETH 'Giga mooning'
Maybe Something - things we’re keeping an eye on
RTFKT teased a trailer of the Nike Hoodie, available for all CloneX and Nike Dunk Genesis holders on July 21st.
The Azuki Twin Tigers jacket redemption period began on Tuesday, July 19th.
Official Care Bears NFT collection coming soon. Public sale is August 4th.
If you like Japanese anime, check out Isekai Meta, minting on 21st July.
Factura by Mathias Isaksen (launched by gm.studio) sold out fast at a .15Eth mint price. The 999 supply collection had an amazing run with floor prices hitting 4.5Eth. It’s now pulled back to around 1.5Eth.
Damien Hirst NFT The Currency Holders Have 1 Week To Claim Art
Pre-mint Raffle Registration is now open for Rags to Richie by Alec Monopoly
Historical Insight: CCGBTCONE was minted on July 26th 2017 on the Counterparty protocol. It's one of the first Waifu NFT's minted on XCP and was used on multiple occasions by Elon Musk in his Twitter posts, dating back to Oct 2018, and even as his PFP. The jury is still out as to how relevant this will be in the future. It currently has a 4ETH floor price.
Talking Point - Security Measures:Part 1
In light of recent hacks, I thought we’d revisit some best practices to help prevent ourselves from falling victim to cyber crimes.
I feel strongly that as early adopters we have a ‘duty of care’ when onboarding new users into the space. And we should do so with user security at the forefront of our minds.
In an impatient age, where it’s commonplace to click through T&C’s on websites, ‘accept all cookies’ and never read small print, we need ensure newcomers to the NFT space aren’t so blasé when it comes to understanding necessary security measures.
It’s imperative they understand the importance of security from day one, and that we encourage them to take the time to fully understand how to safeguard their assets.
It can be difficult to encourage participation when there’s so many scams and hacks in operation, but with some key pieces of information hammered home at the very beginning of a users introduction to the space, you can help prevent the vast majority of attacks.
I’ll break this information it into two parts across two newsletters. This week we’ll look at what preventative measures we can take to ensure we’re interacting with the space in a safe manner. Next week, we’ll explore the tactics of the scammers and hackers, providing examples of how they try to obtain control over your assets. The below is aimed at Metamask users, but is generally applicable for most wallets.
Read the Metamask setup information in full and follow their recommendations.
Store your seed phrase offline. Do not store it digitally on any device which connects to the internet/shared WiFi, or the like. This includes your smartphone.
Back up your seed phrase. Keep two copies of your seed phrase in separate locations.
Do not set up a Metamask extension on a shared/work computer. If you forget to log out, your are instantly vulnerable.
Avoid sending your private keys/seed phrases in their complete form via any medium at all. i.e. Do not email somebody your seed phrase.
Use a hardware wallet (such as a Ledger) to store your most coveted assets.
Use multiple wallets. Use a separate hot wallet to interact with higher risk environments (more on this in the below section)
Do not provide your seed phrase or private key to any third party…ever.
Keep your DM’s closed on Discord and do not interact with any unknown third parties. Do not click any links or connect your wallet to anything via Discord unless you are 100% certain of its legitimacy. The same applies to emails.
Do not connect to public WiFi connections when using your wallets.
Avoid setting up any crypto/NFT wallets on your smartphone at all. It’s simply another attack vector for hackers to hone in on. Keep it limited to your personal laptop/desktop if possible.
Be vigilant in public spaces of who can see your laptop screen.
Do not connect your wallet to any websites unless you are certain they are safe.
Run anti-malware and ant-virus programs regularly to check for key-logging software or spyware.
Use a strong password for your Metamask account, and log out of your account when you finish using it.
Be aware of malicious chrome extensions which may compromise your Metamask security.
Develop an understanding of what it means to sign transactions on Metamask, and the inherent risks associated with doing so. This is a good thread outlining some of the issues related to this.
This covers the majority of best practices one can adhere to to prevent having your wallet compromised. If ever in doubt, ask an expert. You can always jump into the ZenAcademy Discord and ask anything you want. When it comes to safety, there are no stupid questions. Next week we’ll look at some of the tricks and scams hackers are using to steal users assets. Until then, stay safe.
Tip Of The Week - Separate Mint Wallets
Getting on the mintlist/allowlist for an upcoming NFT project launch can be exciting, but it also comes with risk.
Often, new NFT projects are launched by anon (anonymous) teams. This presents a risk in that we don’t know who is behind the project, and therefore there’s no accountability should there be any negative fallout if the mint gets compromised.
Also, despite best efforts, smart contracts are susceptible to hackers. During mints is when these unscrupulous characters often search for vulnerabilities.
Also, it can be long after the mint that the smart contract is compromised. If you haven’t revoked permissions to that contract, you may still be at risk.
With all this in mind, it’s prudent to use a separate wallet for minting purposes. This acts to safeguard your most valuable assets should your minting wallet get compromised. Keep your most valuable assets in a different wallet, ideally secured using a hardware wallet.
I know the above is common knowledge for most seasoned participants in the NFT space, but I’m still shocked at how many people I know who still do not use a hardware wallet. Being complacent can end up costing us dearly.
ZenAcademy and 333 Club Noticeboard
Regular Event Reminders
Join poker nights via our Discord. Events held weekly, with prizes to be won.
Weekly Movie Nights are going strong. See more info here.
As a ZenAcademy member you get exclusive access to market health statistics on a daily basis in Discord. Additionally, you can check out community member Swombat’s daily NFT market health updates on YouTube.
As part of the ZenAcademy community you’ll also have free access to the Misfit Robot Discord, and several of their “Members Only” rooms. ZA believes mental health support should be accessible to everyone. Check them out here: https://discord.gg/misfitrobots
Season 2 of the ZenAcademy Trivia Challenge has started up again. Click here for more info.
Irregular Events and Info
ZenAcademy x SuperSea. The ZA/333 community leaders have established a long-term partnership with SuperSea. This will provide the community with access to their powerful toolkit, featuring floor price tracking, quick-buy, mass bidding, and more. SuperSea will be offering all ZenAcademy Genesis and 333 token holders a 70% off discount to the subscription prices (T&C apply), and
an allocation of free monthly memberships to the SuperSea tool library (these will be raffled)
Zeneca recently announced an exciting partnership with The Phoenixes by Habit Nest. Habit Nest is an 8 figure wellness web2 business with dozens of award winning products focused on habit building.
Episode #47 of Two Bored Apes is available on YouTube. Click here to watch.
A ‘global-events’ channel was launched in the ZA Discord to help facilitate IRL meet-ups amongst the community. Click here for more details.
The latest edition of ZenChats is available on Spotify. Check it out here. Carlini8 is the guest. He’s an NFT expert who’s been in the NFT space since 2017, the ex co-founder of NFT Boxes, a project he co-founded with Pranksy, and the founder of Purrnelope's Country Club.
Zeneca’s latest course with Nas Academy is now available. It's on "How to Build an NFT Community". It can be taken as a 5-day course along with a cohort of other students, or you can do it at your own pace. The course is 100% free for anyone holding a ZenAcademy Genesis or 333 token. You can sign up here.
InPeak is a life long learning platform for emerging technologies and all thing Web3. Zeneca has created An Introduction to Generative Art NFTs video for the platform. It’s free to view so if anyone wants to check it out, you can see it here: https://www.inpeak.xyz/event/generative-art-nfts. There’s also a 33% discount for the ZA community. See Discord Announcements channel for more info.
ZA introduced the ‘ZenAcademy Ethical Trading Policy’. See more about it in this Twitter post.
Our GITBOOK is now live! It is a repository for all of the information relating to ZA (our values, the team, our partners, perks, and plenty of helpful resources). You can visit it by clicking here.
Nothing in this or any other ZenCaps publication should be construed as financial or investment advice. The views and opinions expressed in ZenCaps publications do not reflect those of Zeneca_33 or the ZenAcademy.
Always exercise caution within the NFT space and adhere to best practices when it comes to making any investments. There is plenty of potential, but this comes with inherent risks.
Stay safe, and as always, good luck.