The Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW) officially started today on Decentraland, one of the largest virtual social worlds in the Web3 space.

Set to take place in Decentraland’s newest “Luxury Fashion District,” the four-day event will see the likes of Dolce&Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger, Elie Saab, and others hold immersive virtual-world fashion shows and after-parties that have become synonymous with the world of fashion.

The virtually unlimited potential of a virtual world means that the MVFW won’t end on the catwalk—a slew of other shopping and artistic experiences are also set to take place daily until March 27th, when the event is set to end with AUROBOROS, who will close the event together with the headline act and muse Grimes.

Selfridges, the quintessential London retailer, kicked off Fashion Week yesterday with the inauguration of its flagship metaverse store. The launch featured an immersive experience with Paco Rabanne and Victor Vasarely and will be followed by similar experiences from Etro, Franck Muller, Nicholas Kirkwood, and others.

Sam Hamilton, the creative director of the Decentraland Foundation, said that neither fashion nor haute couture are new to the metaverse. Since the launch of its avatar wearables back in 2020, Decentraland has been on the cutting edge of rare and in-demand digital fashion.

“Since then, creators have been pushing both the technical and stylistic limits of Decentraland wearables and have created a booming economy with over $1 million in sales of avatar wearables last year,” he told CryptoSlate.

Decentraland, freeing fashion from the constraints of the real world

The Metaverse Fashion Week will certainly bring quite a bit of traffic and media attention to Decentraland. However, the impact of MVFW goes way beyond these four days and has the potential not just to change the way people interact with the metaverse, but the way they interact with fashion as well.

Giovanna Graziosi Casimiro, the head of the MVFW at Decentraland, said that the fashion industry and the metaverse are a perfect fit for each other. In an interview with CryptoSlate, she explained that the two share intrinsic characteristics that, when combined, are much more than just the sum of their parts.

“Web3 and the metaverse and about reclaiming individuality and utilizing blockchain technology to free yourself from the constraints of the real world. In Web3, everyone is in charge of their own data and digital identities, and therefore able to monetize themselves in a way that’s an antithesis of Web2.”

Those very same things are the essence of fashion, she went on to explain, saying that fashion has historically enabled people to express themselves in the real world and control how people perceive them.

With the global apparel market amounting to over $1.5 trillion in 2021, it’s safe to say that fashion is not only a driver of the global economy but also the driver of global culture.

That’s why having fashion enter the metaverse will help normalize the virtual world for a lot of people, Casimiro explained. Until recently, the metaverse looked too wild and unhinged for the majority of the mainstream economy. She said that many companies have been carefully watching the metaverse and staying on the sidelines, fearing the risks of jumping into the Web3 unknown.

“Now that major use cases are materializing—from ashion, community building, and e-commerce, to healthcare, education, and design—people are beginning to realize that the metaverse now makes a lot of sense.”

What pushed many fashion companies to take the leap into the metaverse was the realization that all of its users need to have clothes. And tens of thousands of highly-liquid people, all quick on the trigger when it comes to spending their crypto, make up a user base that’s hard to ignore.

The rise of metaverse clothing began last year after Decentraland held its first mega-event. The sheer number of people participating in the event revealed an interesting phenomenon the Dec...

As sentiment flips risk-on against expectation, crypto markets are enjoying a period of buoyant activity. Cardano leads the large caps, up 31% over the past week. But somewhat surprisingly, Dogecoin follows, having gained 16% over the same period.

$DOGE has been trending downwards following May 2021’s peak of $0.76. The price hit a local bottom on February 24, 2022, marking a peak to trough move played out over ten months with a -87% swing to the downside.

The loyal Dogecoin community has continued to meme away their misery throughout this time. However, with the technicals signaling a reversal, is their patience about to be rewarded?

Dogecoin analysis

Dogecoin has closed the last three consecutive daily candles in the green, with Thursday on track to do the same. Wednesday saw a touch of the 50-day moving average line before dipping back down to close the day slightly below.

Today sees a moderate break of the 50-day moving average line, as $DOGE posts 5% gains at the time of writing.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) shows a sharp uptick since Monday, having moved from 44 to 63, indicating strong buyer momentum. However, RSI resistance is found at the 66 level, established on January 14 as $DOGE touched $0.22.

Interestingly, further analysis shows the price chart is forming a rounding bottom. Typically, this pattern indicates a positive reversal in sentiment and the end of a protracted downtrend.

“Rounding bottoms are found at the end of extended downward trends and signify a reversal in long-term price movements.”

Once the move completes, a breakout usually follows and should continue in a new upward trend.

Dogecoin now available at crypto ATMs

Technical analyst CryptoSoap expects price action to develop into an inverse head and shoulders. A break of the falling wedge will see a bullish retest of the wedge line before moving higher.

The prediction was justified based on low volume, which is interpreted as a lack of sell pressure.

Recent times have seen the narrative turn away from meme coins. However, Dogecoin is attempting to redefine itself as a (serious) payment token.

Supporting this undertaking, Coinflip, this month, announced it is adding Dogecoin to its network of 1,800 ATMs. Coinflip co-founder Daniel Polotsky said $DOGE is growing in popularity, and his firm is committed to supporting the project.

“Given its growing popularity and recent mass adoption, we are dedicated to making sure that Dogecoin is a part of our portfolio of coins, and encourage further support of this cryptocurrency in the coming months.”

While the signs point to a trend reversal, traders should proceed with one eye on Bitcoin and the macro landscape.

Simply put, blockchain oracles facilitate accessing, processing, and transmitting information between the outside world of off-chain data and smart contracts. That said, DeFi and applied blockchain apps wouldn’t be possible without them.

The data they transmit can come in various forms, given they allow communication with different off-chain systems–including web APIs, cloud providers, e-signatures, payment systems, IoT devices, and other blockchains, amongst others.

That said, it’s valuable to understand their potential when it comes to increasing blockchain’s utility, what are the most exciting developments aimed to mitigate the trust that is being placed in any of the current oracle solutions, and what roles will these arbiters of truth play in the future of decentralized services.

To answer these questions, CryptoSlate talked to some of the prominent experts on the subject, some of who are going to meet in Berlin this June at the world’s first technologically agnostic summit that’s fully focused on oracles.

Connecting smart contracts to information outside of their native blockchains

While they already represent a crucial piece of the infrastructure that makes DeFi possible– ensuring the validity of data in the blockchain ecosystems–oracles are likely to become more prominent as more use-cases move toward Web3.

“When we looked at a lot of the use cases, we realized that we really needed to actually create the information–we needed to actually answer questions you can put in human language,” explained Edmund Edgar, Founder of Social Minds Inc., who created the world’s first smart contract oracle called Reality Keys.

Designed for Bitcoin scripting back in 2013, Reality Keys didn’t see much usage, however it served as a base for developing Reality.eth–an open source arbitration platform on Ethereum.

“Reality.eth is built to answer any question that you like, and instead of relying on a single entity, it’s crowdsourced,” noted Edgar, explaining how multiple people can answer the question, and the system with bonds was included in the design to incentivize them to answer honestly.

While mentioning the integration with Gnosis Safe, Edgar noted that Reality.eth is being increasingly used for governance.

Originally a multisig wallet, Gnosis Safe developed into an operating system for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

Its SafeSnap module, which is an oracle-based solution that utilizes Reality.eth, enables decentralized execution of governance proposals through an on-chain execution of off-chain votes.

“You take a vote of token holders using a system called Snapshot, and then you use Reality.eth to find out what the vote was, and to pass that information to the smart contract, so it can act on it,” Edgar explained the oracle’s role in the decentralized governance tool suite.

Minimizing the reliance on trusted parties

At this point, there are several different types of blockchain oracle services. The most basic typology makes a distinction between first-party and third-party oracles. While first-party oracles are operated by the API providers themselves, the latter are not operated by the owners of the information they serve, but act as middlemen between the data source and the blockchain.

“Some oracle services are centralized, while some are decentralized,” explained Steven Liu, Head of Development at NGD and Technologist of Neo Foundation, while adding how their native oracle solution combined different features from both designs.

The Neo network offers a host of different features to its users, including a decentralized file storage system, an identity system, and an oracle system that enables its smart contracts to access external resources.

“Our native oracle API can be requested directly by a smart contract and it involves a node consensus process, which makes it a trustless decentralized service,” added Liu, noting that because it adopts an asynchronous pattern, the request-response processing mechanism doesn’...

CNBC reported today that a 20-year-old refugee fled Ukraine and the only money he was able to carry was the Bitcoin he held on his pen drive. The Ukrainian, going by Fadey, is not alone as many people are relying on crypto to help them cross European borders.

Due to issues with bank transactions and long ATM queues at ATMs, many have been left without access to funds. However, Fadey was able to make a P2P Bitcoin trade with a friend for $600 worth of the Polish currency, złoty. He then used the money to buy a bus ticket into Poland. Fadey told CNBC,

“I couldn’t withdraw cash at all, because the queues to ATMs were so long, and I couldn’t wait that much time.”

Decentralisation empowers people in dark times.

This highlights a point we raised earlier in the conflict: decentralised assets can empower displaced people fleeing war. When the centralised system collapses, all that is needed is a basic internet connection and a piece of paper containing a seed phrase. Even those who have been able to withdraw fiat currency via ATMs have been restricted to $33 per transaction, which does not apply to crypto.

Ukraine already had the highest crypto adoption in Europe, which is now helping many of its citizens survive. The $2000 that Fadey could carry on his pen drive equates to just under half of his life savings. For all the crypto whales we analyse and read about, there are hundreds of thousands of people like Fadey. People to whom a few thousand dollars is the difference between life and death.

Embracing crypto

Ukraine is also embracing crypto at a government level. It has received millions of dollars in crypto donations from all around the globe and officially legalised crypto this week. Hopefully, other countries will now see how crypto can aid their citizens during times of crisis and encourage further adoption.

Bitcoin ATMs in border countries have allowed those escaping the Russian invasion to access their funds once they are safe. It would be great to see more Bitcoin ATMs; however, their existence is currently in doubt after being banned in the UK last week.

Beyond the borders, Portugal is also leading the way in supporting Ukrainians relocate. The country, which has zero capital gains tax on crypto, welcomes refugees, including crypto employees from companies such as NEAR. Portugal and Ukraine are both hubs of crypto development, so there is a natural synergy for any Ukrainian crypto firms looking to relocate due to the war.

With over 3.5 million refugees travelling across Europe from Ukraine, access to funds is a real problem. Crypto is not just an investment tool for those hoping to outpace the stock marketing. For millions of people all around the globe, crypto is opening up lifelines during some of the most challenging times. Decentralisation does not just protect our investments; it saves the lives of those who rely upon it when they need it most.

Arthur Cheong, the founder of crypto-asset fund DeFiance Capital who is also known as Arthur_0x on Crypto Twitter, became the latest target of a “social engineering attack” today, losing roughly $1.8 million worth of crypto and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The only thing I can say to the hacker is: you mess with the wrong person.

Arthur 🌔⛩️🦔👻 (@Arthur_0x) March 22, 2022

“The only thing I can say to the hacker is: you mess with the wrong person,” Cheong wrote following the attack. “Was pretty careful and stuck with only using hardware wallet on PC until I start trading NFT more regularly. Hot wallet on the mobile phone is indeed not safe enough.”

According to Cheong, an unknown hacker (or a group) has compromised his hot (i.e. connected to the Internet) wallet and drained cryptocurrencies as well as NFTs. The latter was then put up for sale on OpenSea marketplace “for cheap.”

In total, it appears the hacker has got his hands on around 80 NFTs (mostly Azukisproceedswhat was), 68 Wrapped Ether, 4,349 Staked DYDX, and 1,578 LooksRare tokens.

At press time, the hacker’s wallet, which has been receiving the profits from NFT sales, held just over 585 Ethereum ($1.76 million) and about $12,700 in other tokens.

No one is safe

A few hours after the hack, Cheong revealed that he apparently fell victim to a “targeted social engineering attack” and accidentally opened a “spear-phishing email.”

“Found out the likely root cause for the exploit, it’s a targeted social engineering attack. Received a spear-phishing email that really seems to be sent by one of our portco with content that seems like general industry-relevant content,” he tweeted. “They are likely targeting all crypto peep.”

Was being careless on this one since it comes from 2 seemingly legitimate sources.

Once I open the file then I see the images below and then it proceed to the normal PDF document, didn't suspect what's wrong back then:

Arthur 🌔⛩️🦔👻 (@Arthur_0x) March 22, 2022

Cheong also acknowledged that it was “careless” of him to open the attached file and noted that “none of the anti-virus picked up this file as malicious.” Additionally, the email in question was sent “from 2 seemingly legitimate sources.”

Namely, from “[email protected],” as one of the screenshots provided by Cheong showed. As such, the hacker was aiming to disguise himself as Jehan Chu, a co-founder and managing partner at blockchain-focused venture company Kenetic Capital.

Commenting on the attack, Cheong also pointed out that everyone should be always vigilant in the crypto industry, regardless of how much experience in the space they have.

“Well this hit me hard but if I got exploited as a fairly sophisticated 5 years crypto user (DeFi user, password manager, mostly hardware wallet),” he wrote. “I’m not sure how I can persuade most normal people to put a substantial part of their networth onchain anymore.”

FTX US announced that they acquired Good Luck Games, the creators of the prominent auto-battle card game Storybook Brawl. Reviews of the game on Steam tanked on the news as gaming fans continue to show resistance to crypto entering the gaming ecosystem. The game has had a total of 2417 reviews since launching in June 2021. Only 460 of these were negative, and disgruntled fans posted 162 within the last 24 hours

A gamer with over 200 hours in Storybook Brawl commented,

“Been acquired by a crypto company and will be working to integrate blockchains. Supporting this game is now actively harmful.”

The game now has a recent rating of ‘Mostly Negative’ on Steam whilst the review score overall remains ‘Very Positive.’

Why all the hate?

Quite why the gaming community seems so outraged by the concept of blockchain technology baffles me, to be honest. Parts of the gaming community appear to view crypto as a new way to introduce microtransactions and increase corporate profits. However, if all digital assets from games were to become NFTs, your priceless collectibles in games like CS:GO, Dota 2, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, and many others would outlive the game. Currently, gamers who spend thousands of dollars on in-game items for online multiplayer games like those mentioned above will lose access to the collectibles when the games are eventually shut down. With an NFT version of the items, it would be possible for a new developer to allow collectors to import the items into a new game and retain the exclusivity of the object.

Further, there is nothing to stop developers from allowing items to flow freely throughout the metaverse between games. Grinding for items in one game might affect your gameplay in another. The potential for a genuinely multi-game open world of digital assets truly excites me. For this reason, I am disappointed by the general backlash from the community for anything blockchain-related. Whilst I would understand a healthy reservation and tentative reaction to ensure that publishers integrate blockchain technology to benefit the players, I do not understand the outright refusal to be involved in any game associated with crypto.

Why FTX has taken a risk on Storybook Brawl

So, given the risky sentiment towards introducing blockchain to gaming, why has FTX purchased Goodluck Games? Sam Bankman-Fried, a co-founder of FTX, commented,

“Outside of it being an incredibly fun game our whole office enjoys, with its highly engaging gameplay and free-to-play model, we saw an opportunity to be the vanguard for the ethical integration of gaming and crypto transactions in a way that hasn’t yet been done in this space.”

The game’s initial success is likely due to the team behind the development. Storybook Brawl is an online card game created by the players for the players. Before getting into game design, the founders were professional Magic the Gathering players, so they have a deep insight into what makes a great card game. To add to this, the CEO, Matthew Place, was also the initial lead designer on Hearthstone at Blizzard. With a team such as this behind Goodluck Games and a crypto company that stresses the need to be the “vanguard for the ethical integration of gaming and crypto transactions,” I honestly believe this project could be the template for blockchain-based gaming in the future. On the sensitive topic of blockchain integration, Place said, “We found that FTX has a similar mindset in creating the model for digital object ownership done right.”

Game industry backlash

I, for one, hope that this is true. We need some pioneers to set a flag in the ground for how blockchain gaming can be done the right way. Only time will tell how it will evolve and if it will ever be accepted by the gaming community. FTX’s moving into gaming comes at a time amid a general backlash from the community. Ubisoft’s attempts to add NFTs to Ghost Recon were even received poorly internally by staff.

Storybook Brawl will feature at th...

The national football league (NFL) has finally lifted the embargo on teams’ involvement in crypto-related activities.

In a memo released on Tuesday, the NFL stated that teams will now have permission to seek blockchain partnerships. But this doesn’t include stadium signage, and the clubs won’t still be allowed to directly promote cryptocurrencies.

This decision modifies the previous outright ban of cryptocurrency sponsorship imposed in August 2021. Then, the NFL banned teams from selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as it claims to be developing a strategy.

But with the level of success and progress the space has seen in recent times, the change in its approach is not entirely surprising.

According to the NFL, it claims that it has finally evaluated the technology and will now permit “promotional relationships without undertaking excessive regulator or brand risk.”

NFL places stringent restrictions on crypto sponsorships

However, there are lots of other restrictions in place. The head of consumer products at NFL, Joe Ruggiero, told CNBC that the sponsorship deals are not to exceed three years so as to ensure flexibility.

This means that long-term deals such as the 20-year sponsorship that saw LA Staples Centre become Crypto.com Arena won’t be possible in the NFL.

The new rules will only allow teams to advertise NFTs and the companies behind the project. But they can’t use their official logos and other markings in the ads. Teams can’t enter any product licensing arrangements or sponsorship with NFT or NFT companies.

This strict stance on NFTs is due to NFL interest in non-fungible tokens space. Per available information, the league has entered into a partnership with leading NFT company Dapper Labs.

Last year, it gave the crypto firm the rights to create NFT collectibles using memorable moments from previous games.

It also partnered with trading card company Panini to develop its first NFT trading cards.

No fan tokens

Another area where there are still restrictions is on fan tokens. This isn’t surprising, given that the performance of sports fan tokens has been far below expectations in recent times.

As a result, most fan tokens have not been of value to sports fans and have become just another speculative asset with a high potential for loss.

However, the NFL hasn’t just been evaluating the crypto space; it’s also making moves to capitalize on the technology. In fact, it has lobbied the White House, Department of Justice, and the Securities and Exchange Commission on matters relating to blockchain technology.

It also experimented with NFTs during some of its games last year, including Super Bowl LVI where a number of crypto firms advertise their services via the platform.

CryptoSlate recently had the opportunity to chat with the Managing Director of Nexo, Antoni Trenchev.

Nexo is a leading digital asset company best known for providing the world’s first instant crypto credit lines. Prior to catching the blockchain bug in early 2013, Trenchev studied finance law at King’s College London and Humboldt University of Berlin. After college, he worked in the hedge fund industry before turning his attention to financial technology, becoming the chief innovations officer at Credissimo, a European fintech group specializing in online consumer lending that was an early backer of the Nexo enterprise.

As a member of Bulgaria’s parliament, Trenchev advocated for progressive legislation to enable blockchain solutions for a variety of e-government services, most notably e-voting and the storage of databases in a distributed ledger.

In the interview we discuss:

How Trenchev got started in crypto

Why Nexo’s management team operates out of London

Nexo’s notable achievements and product roadmap

Why and how Nexo offers insurance on user funds

How Nexo is working to prevent a similar loss-of-user-funds incident as the one that happened at Cred

Biggest challenges of building a crypto lending platform

What blockchain developments Trenchev is most excited about

Trenchev’s crypto predictions for 2021 and beyond

Biggest obstacles for mainstream adoption

Differences between the 2017 and 2020 Bitcoin bull run

Trenchev’s most controversial opinion relating to blockchain

Disclaimer: Nexo is an advertising partner for CryptoSlate but this is not a sponsored post.

The price of Cashio (CASH), a USD-pegged stablecoin based on the Solana blockchain, dropped to nearly zero today after a newly discovered exploit allowed users to produce unlimited amounts of the token.

“Please do not mint any CASH. There is an infinite mint glitch,” Cashio’s Twitter account announced today. “We are investigating the issue and we believe we have found the root cause. Please withdraw your funds from pools. We will publish a postmortem ASAP.”

Please retweet for visibility.

Cashio ($CASH) 💵 (@CashioApp) March 23, 2022

Under normal circumstances, users had to lock up their USDT and USDC stablecoins in a liquidity pool in order to mint Cashio. However, the exploit allowed at least one attacker to mint 2 billion CASH tokens without providing anything in return. Consequently, the hacker used his newly acquired “free” tokens to drain other stablecoins from Cashio’s pools.

As a result, the price of CASH crashed from $1 to $0.00005786, effectively losing 100% of its value, according to crypto metrics platform CoinGecko.

Prior to the crash, around $28.9 million worth of CASH tokens were locked in the ecosystem, DeFi Llama’s data shows. However, after the glitch was discovered and exploited, this figure shrunk to just about $580,000.

In its turn, Saber, a Solana-based market maker protocol on which Cashio’s liquidity pools were based, quickly stopped the corresponding operations.

“We’ve paused all $CASH pools—we are investigating the issue and will provide an update ASAP,” Saber tweeted today.

We've paused all $CASH pools — we are investigating the issue and will provide an update ASAP.

Saber (@Saber_HQ) March 23, 2022

Sadly, Cashio is far from the first “stable” token that ultimately proved to be anything but. For example, the price of SafeDollar, an algorithmic DeFi stablecoin based on the Polygon blockchain, similarly dropped to near-zero due to a $248,000 exploit last summer.

Nexo announced today that it has launched Nexo Ventures, its in-house Web3 focused investment and acquisition fund.

The move follows several major initatives, such as crypto debit cards and an NFT lending desk, that are set to bring Nexo to the forefront of the DeFi market.

Nexo promises $150 million in long-term commitments

According to the company’s announcement, Nexo Ventures will focus on accelerating the development and adoption of blockchain technology through investments in various Web3 projects and initatives.

The venture fund will invest $150 million in long-term commitments in a wide range of early-stage projects, both retail and institutional, that could complement the company’s core business.

Tatiana Metodieva, the company’s CFA, will lead Nexo Ventures and help drive the continued adoption of digital assets through meaningful investments.

“Our mission is to elevate entrepreneurs who help push the crypto revolution forward,” she said in the company’s statement. “Also, our investment value proposition differs from most traditional investment funds. We’re native to and have a deep understanding of the digital asset industry and technology. We prioritize strategic investments and aim to integrate innovative solutions into Nexo’s product ecosystem and across our global market footprint.”

Leading up to the launch of Nexo Ventures, Nexo’s in-house investment team has made key investments in 1inch, Yield Protocol, Qredo, and others. A deep knowledge of the space, combined with a series of successful investments, will certainly help the fund in targeting promising projects, Metodieva explained.

The fund will focus on five key areas of investment: Web3, DeFi innovation, payment and trading infrastructure, compliance solution, as well as the metaverse, NFTs, and GameFi. It will also explore the feasibility of a model that enabled Nexo’s users to invest alongside the fund, a move Metodieva said could create investor diversification and maximize the wealth of its users.