The new crypto phone is here 📱
GM,
This is Cryptonite, your twice-a-week shot to stay updated about the crazy world of crypto. We hit you with what’s relevant, upcoming and funny — minus the FUD.
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Solana gifts Web3 its first phone📱
What’s happening — The world of Crypto is filled with surprises. And last week, Blockchain platform Solana launched a Web3-focused Android smartphone called Saga.
Specs on the phone include a 6.67-inch OLED display, 512GB of storage, 12GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip from Qualcomm, Inc.
Priced at $1,000, Saga will feature:
Solana Pay — To help users pay for things using crypto
Decentralised app store — This means no fees charged to developers, unlike Apple and Google’s, criminal 30% cut.
Seed vault - this stores all your private keys securely on your phone. Your phone = your crypto wallet
SMS (Solana Mobile Stack) — A developer platform to build decentralised apps. Also included is a $10 million fund for helping developers to build.
While the sales will start only next year, the launch is a fascinating moment for Web3. Until now, users had to interact with Web3 apps mainly via laptops, while available phone apps tend to crash a lot.
Why care — If you want crypto to go mainstream, it has to be mobile-first and convenient. Whether the phone becomes a success or fails spectacularly like Facebook and Amazon’s Fire Phone, one thing is for sure — it shows the grand ambitions and vision for the future.
Damn you, scammers 🤦♂️
What’s happened — Scammers impersonating legit crypto exchanges have stolen over $128 million (1000 crore in INR) from Indian investors, according to cybersecurity company, CloudSEK.
How? Well, scammers approached investors by copying a popular London-based crypto exchange called CoinEgg with a similar domain name and identical website look. Users who invested initially made profits, only to see their accounts frozen later. One user claimed to have lost $64,000 (about 50 lakhs in INR).
We have heard of similar scams earlier, too, but lately, crypto scams have been on the rise thanks to a growing number of investors and little regulation on the global scale. Hackers have also been targeting cross-chain bridges. Qubit Finance's bridge was hacked for $80 million back in January and drained $622 million in Ethereum and USDC from Axie Infinity's Ronin bridge in March.
18-year-old creates $700K business selling BAYC NFT toys 💵🤯
18-year-old Ricky Da Luz, figured out last summer how to tap into the NFT community, build out toys based on apes from BAYC and make some serious money while doing it.
Some backstory: Before launching IsmToys, David saved about $10,000 mowing lawns and used that capital to make the initial free toys to give to members of the Bored Ape community.
He approached about 100 BAYC NFT holders on Twitter last year — offering to make free toy replicas of their apes. One Bored Ape holder, @phibacka31, accepted Luz's free toy and spread the word.
His first Bored Ape toy was commissioned in January for about $400. Fast forward to today, and he is the founder of IsmToys, which he runs with his dad, Tony da Luz, and a team of six staff. Da Luz said 99% of IsmToys' transactions are done in Ethereum.
Today, that small experiment has turned into a full-blown NFT Toy company called, IsmToys, with a revenue of over $700K. Talk about hustle.
Why care — Web3 and NFTs are all about communities that are known to be supportive. As we keep saying, if you want to build something for a community, now is the time.
Crypto Bytes ₿
Crypto payments firm, MoonPay has launched its NFT platform, HyperMint, in partnership with Hollywood studios Universal Pictures, Fox and Snoop Dogg’s Death Row Records.
Bella Hadid is dropping her NFT collection called CY-B3LLA to mark her entry into the metaverse.
The professional ice hockey league, NHL, has signed a multi-year NFT partnership with NFT platform Sweet. Crypto sports FTW!
Hackers stole $100 million from Defi platform Harmony.
Eminem and Snoop Dogg dropped a music video with their Personal Bored Apes.
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DISCLAIMER:
None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.