The Golden State Warriors have announced a partnership with troubled cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, despite currently being sued by the investors of its previous crypto sponsor, FTX.

Coinbase is now the “official cryptocurrency platform and blockchain partner of the Warriors” and its home, Chase Center. The partnership aims to “introduce new and exciting ways for fans to engage with their favorite team.”

Essentially, Coinbase and the Golden State Warriors will peddle blockchain-related merch. In a bid to attract new users, Warrior fans who create a Coinbase account will also get “season-long benefits.”

Coinbase is already the exclusive crypto partner of the NBA and the WNBA, as well as the NBA G League and the NBA 2K League.

Golden State Warriors and Coinbase face legal woes

However, the crypto exchange is currently in a heated legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Coinbase is accused of illegally operating in the US and offering unregistered securities.

What’s more, the Golden State Warriors and its star player Stephen Curry are in the midst of a lawsuit themselves. Both promoted the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX, which spectacularly crashed in 2022.

Read more: Diddy joins SBF, Avraham Eisenberg in ‘horrific’ Brooklyn prison

A host of investors have sued the duo for their involvement, along with superstars Tom Brady and Larry David, which has allegedly contributed to the loss of millions of customer funds.

Earlier this year, FTX’s former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Golden State Warriors sign crypto deal with Coinbase amid FTX lawsuit appeared first on Protos.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) and lawyers representing collapsed crypto lender Voyager Digital have been hit with a lawsuit over the promotion and defense of the firm that investors say led to $4.2 billion in losses.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, alleges the NBA was “grossly negligent” when Mark Cuban, the former owner of the Dallas Mavericks, struck a marketing deal with Voyager.

It claims that the NBA accepted billions in promotional compensation as Covid left the association with “empty arenas and the loss of billions in television revenues.” It added that the NBA leveraged its “global reputation and trust in the NBA brand,” to promote the selling of unregistered and illegal securities to the public.

McCarter & English LLP, the law firm that represented Voyager, was alleged to have “produced fraudulent legal opinions” while maintaining Voyager was operating “entirely above board.”

Read more: DoJ appeals against Voyager asset deal with Binance US

Cuban was sued by Voyager investors shortly after the lender went bankrupt in 2022. He was accused of shilling Voyager Digital’s unregistered securities and contributing to the loss of billions in a Ponzi-style scheme.

McCarter & English reportedly said it will “vigorously defend the firm, which provided clear and competent advice to our clients.”

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel. 

The post Investors sue Voyager lawyers and NBA over $4B in losses appeared first on Protos.

Smart contract hackers derailed the NBA’s hotly-anticipated 2022 NFT release, stealing 100 digital images worth nearly $68,000 just hours after the collection was launched.

A hacker executed code that allowed non-whitelisted wallets to jump ahead in the minting queue by stealing valid signatures from whitelisted users.

“The Association,” released on April 20, was the official NBA NFT collection for this year’s playoffs season and comprised 18,000 images: 75 pictures of each pro basketball player in the 2022 NBA playoffs.

To date, secondary trading in the collection on the world’s largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, has generated volume of more than 3,400 ETH ($10 million) since inception.

The NBA issued The Association NFTs in a blind mint that randomized the image that buyers received. Initially concealed, the NBA has unveiled the NFT imagery today (April 22).

The NFTs pull data from Chainlink (LINK) oracles that relay game statistics for each player. Chainlink’s oracle network claims to interpret off-blockchain data for on-blockchain processes.

The images can morph over the next few weeks based on the players’ performance in the playoffs. The NBA based changes on pre-determined achievements that each player could attain on the court.

However, despite annual revenues of $10 billion, the NBA apparently could not afford sufficient code reviews to keep them safe.

The attacker used the technique to mint 100 NFTs ⏤ paying over $8,000 in gas fees to quickly finalize their heist onto Ethereum’s blockchain. They immediately listed all 100 NFTs for liquidation on OpenSea.

The team working on the NBA NFT spent some time troubleshooting that issue. They concluded that the smart contract caused the Allowed List to sell out prematurely, and patched the error.

It’s not clear whether the stolen NBA NFTs have all been sold.

Read more: NFT market OpenSea now worth more than Kraken, Gemini, and eToro

The NBA also operates another NFT marketplace, Top Shot on the Flow blockchain, for official NFT collections. Top Shot supports short video clips, trading cards, and highlights from basketball games. It also launched an NBAxNFT Discord channel with more than 58,000 members.

Other sports leagues including the NFL and UFC have also introduced their own NFT collections, however to date those offerings haven’t been exploited in similar ways.

Follow us on Twitter for more informed news.

Out now: the first three episodes of our new investigative podcast series Innovated: Blockchain City.

The post Hackers breach NBA playoffs NFT contract hours after launch appeared first on Protos.