Wed April 19

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In the news today; GoLive Games launched India's First NFT-Based Cricket Strategy Game, a Mysterious hacker gets a hold of Metamask wallets, and Central Banks Successfully Test DLT in Linking Financial Settlement Systems.

🏏 India's First NFT-Based Cricket Strategy Game: GoLive Games, a mid-core games publisher in the country, has introduced Cricket Stars, the first NFT-based cricket strategy esports game in the nation. Cricket Stars is a multiplayer game that does not follow a Pay-to-Play or Play-to-Earn model. It offers a unique concept where players are presented with six batting and six bowling card options to choose from in each game. Using their knowledge of the game, players must select the right batting card to score runs against their opponent's delivery, while also choosing the perfect bowling skill to dismiss their opponent. Cricket Stars doesn't require players to invest upfront in NFTs, making it stand out in the Esports market. Players can acquire batting and bowling cards as NFTs with varying levels of rarity - Rare, Epic, and Legendary - and use their unique features to compete against other players in real-time. The game's NFT marketplace is powered by the Tezos Blockchain, allowing users with Tezos wallets to easily trade, buy, and sell their cards within the in-game store without the need for any cryptocurrency.

💳 Mysterious Metamask Wallet Hacks: Since late last year, an ongoing hack has resulted in the theft of over 5,000 Ethereum (ETH) along with an unknown quantity of tokens and NFTs across multiple chains, according to a statement by @tayvano_, a developer from MetaMask. Despite a two-day investigation, the exact method used by the attacker to carry out the thefts remains unclear. The victims of the hack are described as "OGs who are reasonably secure," with commonalities among the cases including the fact that the keys were created between 2014 and 2022, and the victims are "crypto native," meaning they possess multiple addresses and work within the crypto industry. The hacker typically carries out "primary" thefts, followed by "secondary" thefts hours later to collect assets and dust that may have been missed during the initial heist, sometimes weeks or months later. In cases where large thefts are made, the attacker swaps the stolen assets into ETH within the wallet, and then sends the tokens to a centralized swapper, such as SimpleSwap and ChangeNOW, always swapping into Bitcoin (BTC). The stolen BTC is then held for a week before being sent to a mixer to obfuscate the addresses.

🔗 Central Banks Successfully Test DLT in Linking Financial Settlement Systems: A recent report revealed that the Bank of England has successfully conducted an experiment, called "Project Meridian," which utilized distributed ledger technology (DLT) to facilitate large and complex interbank transactions. The project, conducted through the Bank for International Settlements' (BIS) London innovation hub, aimed to create a prototype that could potentially enhance the speed and cost-efficiency of transactions in central bank Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems. By leveraging DLT, the central bank's RTGS system was linked with other financial market infrastructures and ledgers, allowing for the automatic orchestration of the exchange of ownership of funds and assets in a resilient and secure manner, as stated by BIS, which represents the world's central banks.