Nifty News: Snoop’s $17M NFT collection, movie sold as NFT, QAnon espouser sells tweets

Hip-hop icon Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., also known as Snoop Dogg, has revealed himself to be the pseudonymous nonfungible token (NFT) collector “Cozomo de’ Medici.”

While Snoop has not provided further clarification beyond a Sept. 21 tweet unveiling his digital identity, Medici’s NFT wallet is worth roughly $17.6 million, according to DappRadar.

Snoop’s collection features a long list of NFTs, including highly sought-after CryptoPunks, Meebits and Art Blocks tokens.

Snoop’s CryptoPunks represent most of his portfolio’s monetary value, with the tokens estimated to be worth $13.19 million. The collection includes CryptoPunk #3831, which depicts a green alien wearing a mask and sunglasses — estimated to be valued at $5 million.

While Snoop’s reveal could comprise clever marketing designed to garner some of the limelight being shone on the surging NFT markets, Cozomo’s Twitter account posted a thread five minutes before Snoop made the reveal claiming that they would soon dox themselves using their personal account.

“As my fame is considerable, the tweet will no doubt be discovered,” they said.

Those who do not care, or simply prefer to not know the source of my vast fame and fortune, may simply not research.I will keep this account focused on NFTs, and not mention this again here.⚔️ ~CdM

— Cozomo de’ Medici (@CozomoMedici) September 20, 2021

This isn’t Snoop Dogg’s first foray into the NFT sector, as the cannabinoid enthusiast previously collaborated with the artist behind the Nyan Cat meme to drop “Nyan Dogg” NFTs on 4/20 (a day sacred among marijuana smokers) earlier this year.

NFT collector’s clumsy security practices lead to $294,000 worth of stolen NFTs

An NFT collector who goes by the name “Baccredited” on Twitter stated that hackers swiped $375,000 worth of NFTs and tokens from two of their Ethereum wallets.

In a Sept. 21 tweet, the victim tallied their losses, concluding that $294,000 worth of NFTs and $81,000 worth of crypto tokens had been stolen from their accounts.

Baccredited noted that while they don’t know exactly how the hackers gained access to their wallets, their private keys and seed phrases had been stored in .txt files on their computer, stating:

“I know how stupid I was. $375K worth of stupid. I put private keys and seed phrases in txt files on my mac’s filesystem. That is a bad idea. I didn’t use a hardware wallet for high-value assets. I know. I know. I KNOW.”

The victim claimed to have NFTs from widely popular collections, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, Art Blocks, Meebits and Pudgy Penguins, marking an expensive lesson in private data storage for the collector.

“Wow, compiling this particular list did NOT feel good AT ALL,” they added.

Feature film and “Hybrid NFTs”

Blockchain-based metaverse tech firm Marvion is dropping “Hyrbid NFTs” (h-NFTs) in partnership with Phoenix Waters Productions and AMM Global as part of the release of an upcoming feature film named “Lockdown.”

According to Marvion, a Hybrid NFT is an integrated “smart contract that can execute a transaction and also contains the specific legal terms of the intellectual property ownership and license.”

The first drop will include five limited editions h-NFTs that will be issued a month before Lockdown premiers in November. The h-NFTs will depict content from the movie, while the firm is also touting the drop of tokenized tickets for viewers who attend live screenings in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.

The plot of Lockdown follows the story of an actor who partakes in an audition where the casting director forces them to pass a series of tests to stop someone around him from being killed. The cast includes Xander Berkeley, known for his roles in Terminator 2 and The Walking Dead, and Hong Kong actress Anita Chui.

The specific details of the h-NFTs will be announced in the coming weeks.

Related: Pundits say crashing floor prices and sell volume signal that ‘the NFT market has died’

A tokenized QAnon conspiracy?

Ron Watkins, who is believed to be one of the original espousers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, has announced he will launch an NFT collection via auction to fund a “critical project” that he says will “save America.”

The collection comprises five tokenized tweets from Watkins that were retweeted by Donald Trump prior to the pair being banned from the platform earlier this year.

“A few weeks ago, I decided to start working on a secret project that I feel will help save America. To help raise funds I’m selling a collection of five of my tweets that were retweeted by President Trump as special Non-Fungible-Tokens,” Watkins told the 429,000 members of his Telegram group.

The collection is dubbed the “CodeMonkeyZ Freedom Series,” with the first of the series’ five NFTs currently up for auction on OpenSea. Details about the “critical project” are yet to be revealed.

Roundup

Cointelegraph reported on Sept. 21 that Sorare, a marketplace for tokenized soccer trading cards, raised $680 million in a Series B funding round led by Japanese fintech giant SoftBank.

Professional wrestler and actor John Cena said fans only purchased 7.4% of his World Wrestling Entertainment NFTs that were dropped last month. Cena called it a “catastrophic failure” as he cited the price points of the NFTs as being too high for fans.