Table of Contents
- Following a warning from CEO Zhao about a possible SUI token acquisition, Justin Sun has decided to undo a $56 million transfer to Binance
- FARE Protocol, a cryptocurrency company, secures $6.2M in funding prior to the launch of their token
- The peer-to-peer lending platform called Blend has been launched by Blur
- Sotheby’s introduces an NFT marketplace on the blockchain
Following a warning from CEO Zhao about a possible SUI token acquisition, Justin Sun has decided to undo a $56 million transfer to Binance
On Monday, Tron founder Justin Sun announced via Twitter that he has arranged to receive a complete refund for a $56 million transfer to the Binance exchange platform.
This came after Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao issued a warning on Twitter about the potential token grab of the new SUI token.
The transfer, which was made in trueUSD (TUSD), was detected by Whale Alert early on Monday.
Zhao expressed his concern that if Sun used the funds to buy up large amounts of SUI tokens from Binance’s Launchpool, action would be taken.
Binance’s Launchpool is intended as an airdrop for retail users, not just for a few large investors.
The SUI token, which is the native token of the Sui layer1 blockchain, is scheduled to launch once the mainnet goes live on May 3.
Binance announced on Sunday that the SUI token would be available through its Launchpool.
The Launchpool allows users to stake their crypto assets in a liquidity pool and receive rewards in return.
In response to Zhao’s post, Sun explained that his team was not fully aware of the purpose of the funds and that they were intended to facilitate market-making between leading TUSD exchanges, thereby improving liquidity and trading volume, rather than participating in any exchange promotions.
Sun announced that upon realizing their mistake, they immediately contacted the exchange team and arranged for a full refund of the funds.
Later on Monday, Binance tweeted that it would reallocate the market maker’s 278,752 farmed SUI tokens to its platform’s TUSD liquidity pool at 00:00 UTC on May 2.
They stated that they had discussed this with the TUSD market maker and mutually agreed to refund their farmed SUI tokens back to the TUSD pool on Binance.
FARE Protocol, a cryptocurrency company, secures $6.2M in funding prior to the launch of their token
FARE Protocol, a cryptocurrency company, has successfully raised $6.2 million in seed funding led by Goat Capital, which is managed by Twitch founder Justin Kan, and C Squared Ventures.
This fundraising occurred prior to the launch of FARE Protocol’s ecosystem and native token on Ethereum’s layer 2 blockchain, Arbitrum, later this year.
Arbitrum recently made headlines with the much-anticipated airdrop of its ARB token to early adopters, builders, and investors.
However, the event was surrounded by controversy due to the Arbitrum DAO moving nearly $1 billion of the tokens to the Arbitrum Foundation before a vote on how to use the funds was finished.
The FARE ecosystem operates through probability smart contracts, which are triggered by transparent on-chain events based on probability variables. The primary use case for these contracts is the randomized minting and burning (or “winning” and “losing”) of the FARE token.
The system is designed to increase the probability of losing or burning a token over winning or minting, similar to how a real-world casino operates.
Instead of a centralized “house” receiving profits, the collected FARE tokens are distributed to the ecosystem.
Other investors who participated in this round of fundraising include Republic Crypto, Arrington Capital, Eniac Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, Quantstamp, Morningstar Ventures, and DWeb3.
The peer-to-peer lending platform called Blend has been launched by Blur
On Monday, Blur, an NFT marketplace, announced the launch of Blend, a peer-to-peer NFT lending protocol.
The platform, which stands for “Blur Lending,” aims to provide liquidity to traders by enabling buyers to offer collateral for their NFT purchases.
By allowing buyers to put up a percentage of the full NFT price and finance the remaining balance, Blend hopes to enable new buyers to enter the market who were previously unable to afford expensive collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunk NFTs.
In a Twitter thread, Blur explained that the new product will open opportunities for lenders and borrowers seeking to enter the market.
According to Blur, Blend was developed in collaboration with Dan Robinson, head of research at venture capital firm Paradigm, and pseudonymous research associate Transmissions.
Paradigm is also the lead investor in Blur.
The platform will have no fees for traders or lenders, further positioning Blur as a player in the world of decentralized finance (DeFi).
Sotheby’s introduces an NFT marketplace on the blockchain
Sotheby’s, the art auction house, is expanding its offerings of non-fungible token (NFT) art by launching a peer-to-peer secondary marketplace that is specially curated.
This new marketplace will allow for direct transactions between collectors on its platform through its Web3 division, Sotheby’s Metaverse.
The integrated sales system will operate entirely on-chain via the Ethereum and Polygon networks, and users can pay using either ETH or MATIC.
Sotheby’s Metaverse will continue to honor artist royalties through smart contracts on its resale platform, which will automatically pay artists according to their chosen on-chain royalty rate.
This commitment to honoring artist royalties sets Sotheby’s apart as one of the few major NFT marketplaces that are committed to artist resale royalties.
The platform plans to rotate the featured artists on its secondary marketplace every few months, and it will launch with works from 13 leading digital artists.
These include Tyler Hobbs, Claire Silver, XCOPY, Diana Sinclair, Pindar van Arman, and others.
Sotheby’s Metaverse intends to create a space for discerning collectors and is committed to the NFT community.
Michael Bouhanna, Sotheby’s Vice President and Head of NFTs and Digital Art, says that the opportunity to expand Sotheby’s Metaverse with a fully on-chain peer-to-peer market is a crucial step forward in their evolution within the digital art and collectible space.
The auction house first entered the NFT market in April 2021 and has since made over $120 million in total NFT sales.
Sotheby’s Metaverse has facilitated several record-breaking NFT sales, including a “Covid Alien” CryptoPunk that sold for $11.7 million, the World Wide Web source code that sold for $5.4 million, and a rare Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT that sold for $3.4 million.
In June, the platform plans to launch a digital art gallery through the metaverse platform Oncyber, with different rooms curated by different artists and collectors, including the pseudonymous Cozomo De Medici.
