NFTs Hit Resale Market In China Despite Criticism Over Speculation

Welcome to The Daily Forkast, February 21st, 2021, presented by Angie Lau. For the latest in blockchain & crypto news. On today's show: 00:00 Coming up 00:44 South Korean financial giant plans crypto funds 01:45 NFTs hit resale market in China despite criticism over speculation 02:50 OpenSea investigates $1.7M phishing scam --- First, South Korea's Crypto landscape might be widening here. The country's largest financial group is making Crypto plans, and it is a huge signal for adoption. KB Asset Management has launched a committee to develop asset products, including exchange traded funds or ETFs, and a Crypto-themed equity fund. While South Korean banks are currently restricted by local regulations from directly offering cryptocurrency trading services, the committee is actually aiming to be the first to launch its products when regulations change - or if they do. Which means the bank is betting that they will change. In the meantime, banks are only able to provide indirect crypto trading services through partnerships with exchanges or custody services like KB Bank's Koda. Of course, we're going to be keeping watch for any change to those regulations in South Korea. Meanwhile, seems the message from Chinese state media over NFTs may not be getting through. Why? Well, despite criticism over their speculative nature and NFTs issued by China's largest state owned TV station, CCTV, have appeared on the country's largest online second hand market, Xianyu, for at least 10 times the original price. According to our count, at least 50 of the Chinese zodiac themed NFTs, which were initially sold just last week on Tencent and Alibaba's digital collectible platforms, have since appeared on the resale site. However, Tencent has locked down resales, meaning that until the embargo is lifted, sellers are not allowed to complete any transfers, and Alibaba's ant chain has imposed a 180 day wait before resales are permitted, so anyone bidding will have quite some time to wait. Users of one of the world's biggest NFT marketplaces, OpenSea, became the target of an apparent phishing attack to the tune of US$1.7 Million siphoned from investors. And now the platform's CEO has jumped in to reassure users by starting an investigation. Tokens from hugely popular collections, including the Board, App, Yacht Club and Hazuki were among those taken in the theft. Opensea CEO Devin Finserv responded to the exploit in a tweet, saying that as far as they could tell, it was a phishing attack. And it appears that 32 users signed a malicious payload from an attacker, with some of their NFTs being stolen. A phishing attack is a practice of sending out fraudulent communications, posing as being from an official source with the intent of deceiving users into disclosing sensitive information. Over 640 ETH, or around US$1.7 million worth of assets, were hooked, with the NFTs located in a wallet now labeled fake_phishing5169. That same suspicious address also made a transactions on rival NFT marketplaces, Looksrare and Rarible. The attack coincided closely with the release of a new smart contract system Wyvern2.3, which is designed to prevent a different type of exploit. However OpenSea's CTO Nadav Hollander, tweeted that none of the affected orders were executed using the new system and as they were signed before the migration, they appear unrelated. Hollander thanked all of those who have provided information and says OpenSea will continue to actively help affected users. While Finzer said the attacks appear to have stopped and some of the NFTs have been returned. Despite concerns over attacks like that, NFTs have proved an unstoppable juggernaut this year, with last week's Super Bowl featuring everything from commemorative NFT tickets to brewing giant Anheuser-Busch, including its Noun glasses NFTs in its Bud Light ad slots. But just what is this asset class? Is it a utility or a legal right? And who better to ask about the way the world is being tokenized than Henry Chong, CEO of Fusang. Fusang aims to reshape investment markets with blockchain technology. Angie Lau: Henry, guide us through here in particular, what do NFT creators, buyers and sellers need to know about their rights? I mean, everybody's buzzing about NFTs right now. Henry Chong: Just like the crypto markets are exploding increasingly onto public consciousness, I think they made up something like half of the Super Bowl ads and NFTs likewise have just skyrocketed and scale and popularity, not least of which is because at least for now, you don't really need to have identity or go through things like KYC and AML to buy an NFT. And so predictably, the NFT markets have exploded. But what I think NFT investors need to understand is, as I've always said, drilling one layer below the technology. --- #Crypto #Blockchain #BlockchainTechnology #DigitalAssets #Cryptocurrency #DeFi #NFT #China #OpenSea #FishingAttack #KBAssets #ETF #CryptoExchange #Xianyu #LooksRare