bitcoin volatility, $196M Bitmart hack, new OpenSea CFO

The Sandbox, an Ethereum-based metaverse and game where users can buy land and in-game assets as NFTs, had more than $86 million in trading volume. Decentraland, an Ethereum-powered virtual reality platform, had more than $15 million traded for land NFTs.

“Outputting record sales numbers and constantly increasing NFT prices, virtual worlds are the new top commodity in the crypto space,” DappRadar wrote in a blog post.

Block “has many associated meanings for the company — building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome,” Block said in a statement.

Square Crypto, a separate part of the company “dedicated to advancing bitcoin,” will change its name to Spiral.

“We built the Square brand for our seller business, which is where it belongs,” Dorsey, co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy.”

The rebranding came after Dorsey announced his departure as CEO of Twitter. Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal is taking over the role, the company said on Monday.

An investigation to determine what happened is still ongoing.

In the meantime, BadgerDAO froze all smart contracts, which are digital agreements written in code and stored on the blockchain. In turn, users remain unable to deposit, claim rewards or withdraw funds from the BadgerDAO application, according to its website.

This comes amid many recent DeFi-related hacks, which is why financial experts warn to thoroughly research before investing in projects. They recommend only investing what you can afford to lose.

Calling it “a large-scale security breach,” Bitmart estimated that hackers withdrew about $150 million, but Peckshield estimates that the loss is closer to $200 million.

In the statement, Bitmart said that all withdrawals had been temporarily suspended and a security review was underway.

As of Sunday, CNBC reached out to multiple Bitmart employees, asking for more clarity on the hack and if those targeted would be reimbursed. CNBC has not yet heard back.

“I wish they’d never been invented,” Munger said at the Sohn conference in Sydney on Friday, according to The Australian Financial Review. “I admire the Chinese, I think they made the correct decision, which was to simply ban them.”

This isn’t a new stance for the 97-year-old vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. In May, during a Q&A session at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting, Munger said that his dislike for bitcoin increased amid the Covid-19 pandemic.