In a bid to enhance the security of the digital ecosystem, Web3 infrastructure protocol Wakweli has partnered with layer-2 scaling platform Polygon to offer certification of authenticity for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The partnership means that every NFT project holder on the Polygon chain can request authenticity certificates for each asset.
Negotiations for the partnership agreement began in August 2022, with the final details of the agreement concluded this March. Wakweli’s testnet will be available in April, which can be used with Polygon’s Mumbai testnet. Alpha testing with Polygon’s mainnet will begin in Q2 2023, with general mainnet compatibility expected to be ready by Q3 2023.
By providing a medium for detecting counterfeit NFTs, the partnership between the two companies has unlocked a definitive way to fight these scam attempts, thereby creating more trust in the thriving ecosystem. The Wakweli platform and application programming interface will offer developers access to advanced use case scenarios, including automatically generating certification requests when minting or accessing more detailed certification information.
Wakweli’s certification system provides an innovative solution to the ongoing problem of counterfeit NFTs, which has plagued the NFT market since its inception. The certification system will help to ensure that NFTs are authentic, thereby promoting transparency and trust in the digital asset market.
Polygon has gained significant traction through partnerships with major brands such as Starbucks and Adidas, leading to increased adoption of the network among cryptocurrency users. The collaboration with Wakweli is expected to further strengthen Polygon’s position in the market by offering an additional layer of security and authenticity to the digital assets on its platform.
In the past month, the Polygon Foundation has also collaborated with the South Korean multinational conglomerate Lotte Group to showcase the company’s NFT projects. This collaboration highlights the growing interest in NFTs and their potential applications across different industries.
Overall, the partnership between Wakweli and Polygon represents a significant step forward in enhancing the security and trustworthiness of the digital asset market. As the adoption of NFTs continues to grow, the need for robust certification and authentication systems will become increasingly important. The collaboration between Wakweli and Polygon is a promising development in this direction, and it is expected to have a positive impact on the overall growth and sustainability of the digital asset market.
Optic, a San Francisco-based NFT authentication company, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $11 million in a funding round led by US venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and crypto-native investment giant Pantera Capital.
For the latest funding, Optic said it plans to use to invest in building core AI infrastructure and designing a decentralized protocol. The company also stated that it intends to use the capital to recruit more engineering talents and release new tools designed for NFT creators, collectors, and a public API for web3 developers.
Other investors, including Greylock Partners, Lattice Capital, OpenSea, Circle, Polygon, CoinDCX, Neon DAO, and Flamingo DAO, also participated in the funding round.
Optic was founded in March this year by a former director of product at Google, Andrey Doronichev, and world-class AI researchers, Roman Doronin and Vlad Vinogradov.
Optic said it is creating an AI detection engine for NFT content recognition. The firm processes millions of newly minted NFTs daily and matches the content against authentic collections to evaluate their originality. Its automated monitoring tool informs media companies, marketplaces, or brands about potential intellectual property violations.
Optic co-founder and CEO Andrey Doronichev commented: “Optic isn’t an enforcement business. Our goal is to make the information available and transparent to the ecosystem. Artists and marketplaces can decide what to do with it.”
Optic displays a percentage for how much digital content matches existing NFT collections, with a higher number representing a close match and a likelihood of a complete counterfeit. Doronichev said a score below 95% implies that the NFT probably includes inspired or derivative art.
NFT giant OpenSea currently uses Optic’s Marketplace Moderation tool as part of the company’s efforts to crack down on frauds.
Doronichev elaborated: “People think of authenticity and all sorts of fraud and trust issues in the NFT space as a problem of a single marketplace or a single chain or a single creator or community. That’s not true. That’s a systemic ecosystem issue, and it has to be addressed.”
Copyright Infringement on NFT Marketplaces
Optic’s move comes at a time when counterfeit NFTs are causing major problems for digital platforms.
With the parabolic rise of NFTs since last year, cases of fakes and forgeries have become increasingly common in marketplaces.
Brands are struggling to balance how to use their digital assets for marketing and sales purposes while protecting their intellectual property and saving their clients from buying counterfeit NFTs.
But new proprietary tools are being developed to change that.
The global market for non-fungible tokens hit $22 billion last year as the craze for collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Matrix avatars turned digital images into major investment assets. But fraudsters appear keen to take advantage of lax rules and enforcement mechanisms on major NFT marketplaces.
Image source: Shutterstock
In an effort to increase customers’ security and privacy on their platform, cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has announced the adoption of an open authentication standard U2F within its merchant payments service Bitfinex Pay.
The move enables the capacity for online stores and merchants adopting the Bitfinex Pay widget to receive payments for goods and services in a range of crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Lightning Network BTC (LN-BTC) and Tether (USDT) on the Ethereum and Tron blockchains.
Customers of a registered merchant can choose the ‘Pay with Bitfinex’ option upon checkout. After a brief detour through the Bitfinex payment gateway, the customer will be returned to the merchant’s website. Once confirmed, payment will be sent directly to the merchant’s connected Bitfinex wallet address.
With this introduction, Bitfinex is positioning the U2F key — a physical USB device — as an alternative to traditional two-factor authentication methods such as text-message or app notifications. The devices can be used across laptops and mobiles and require a 6-digit passcode to grant payment approval.
CTO at Bitfinex, Paolo Ardoino shared his comments on the feature:
“As a trailblazer in digital payments, Bitfinex Pay has already become a popular payment tool and with the addition of U2F we are providing our users with further means of protecting themselves.”
He continued to say: “These security keys make it almost impossible for a hacker to intercept both your password and the two-factor code.”
Related: Canadian Bitcoin miner Blockstream joins crypto unicorns with $3.2B valuation
In November last year, payments giant Paypal debuted cryptocurrency payments on its U.S. platform, granting customers the ability to buy, hold and sell a selection of popular digital assets. More recently, this feature branched out its U.K. market.
In time, Paypal plans to facilitate the transaction of crypto payments across their established network of 26 million online and physical merchants.
Transitioning from static digital collectibles to tokens with real utility will lead to a new generation of NFTs according to Tytan Inc the COO of NFTY labs, a platform focused on building products for the NFT space.
In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, he said that even if the market is saturated, there is still room for startups to raise funds in the NFT ecosphere.
“Most VCs are kind of catching on to the fact that a lot of the real value is in how you can use an NFT and not so much about what it looks like.”, he pointed out.
Titan Inc. is particularly interested in NFTs as a method of authentication for accessing large databases, which they believe would solve the privacy and security issues inherent in traditional access systems based on passwords and user names.
“You replace that with a hardware wallet with the nontransferable NFT on it. And now that is your method of authentication.”
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