Solana NFT trading volume, Nike RTFKT COO hacked and more

by · January 4, 2023

DNP3, a streamer and founder of several crypto projects such as the charity-focused crypto CluCoin, The Goobers NFT and the metaverse platform Gridcraft Network has admitted to losing investor funds through gambling.

In a tweet, the founder of the nonfungible token (NFT) project spoke about his gambling addiction and issued a public apology.

The Twitch streamer said he became “incredibly addicted” to gambling over the past year. In the end, the Twitch streamer claimed he lost everything. He wrote:

“In addition to my own savings, I also irresponsibly used investor funds to try to get my money back from the casino that was wrong for so many reasons.”

The streamer added that he is now financially and spiritually broke. He also highlighted that the sense of confidence in oneself is compromised. “I am working with a support group to start the road to recovery,” he added.

Nike’s RTFKT COO loses NFTs to hack

Nikhil Gopalani, CEO of the NFT project RTFKT, took to Twitter to say that his NFT collection was stolen in a phishing attack. Gopalani described the attacker as a “clever phisher” and said the scammer was selling his Clone X NFTs.

OpenSea data shows that the attacker used two wallets to steal Gopalani’s NFTs, which are worth around $173,000. This includes 19 CloneX NFTs, 18 RTFKT Space Pods, 17 Loot Pods and 11 CryptoKicks. Data from Etherscan also shows that only $0.11 in Ether (ETH) remains in the wallet associated with Gopalani.

While the method of phishing has not yet been revealed, a chirping from RTFKT CTO Samuel Cardillo suggests that Gopalani may have provided access codes to some fraudsters.

Players are bullying NFTs out of mainstream gaming

The internet’s anti-NFT narrative seems to have managed to separate mainstream game development companies from NFTs. Throughout 2022, game developers such as Stalker studio GSC Game World, Ubisoft, and Worms developer Team17 supported their intention to integrate NFTs into games due to negative feedback from the gaming community.

After performing NFT integration through its Quartz project, game developer Ubisoft took a step back on NFTs. The U-turn came after the gaming company received negative online feedback on Quartz in 2021.

Amidst the backlash, many still believe that NFTs and gaming can be intertwined. On November 4, Electronic Arts (EA) CEO Andrew Wilson spoke on an earnings call and highlighted that NFTs and play-to-earn are the future of gaming. However, the EA boss also noted that it is still early to see how it will work.

Aside from EA, Final Fantasy creator Square Enix has also been a fan of integrating NFTs and blockchain into games. The company recently invested in an NFT gaming company.

Solana NFT trading volume shows signs of strength

After being dealt a massive loss with the Solana (SOL) token losing over 90% of its value in 2021, NFT trading volumes on the Solana blockchain are showing signs of strength, with Christmas Day seeing the most activity.

According to NFT data tracker CryptoSlam, Solana had over $80 million in NFT sales in the last 30 days. The blockchain had over 800,000 transactions in that time, surpassing Polygon and ImmutableX.

Source: CryptoSlam

Despite the great month, it is uncertain whether the strength shown will continue as most of the volume came from DeGods and y00ts, both of whom are bridging Polygon and Ethereum to pursue further adoption.