DEV Community: Coinparative

Wisdomtree: Crypto Is a New Asset Class That People Can’t Ignore

Coinparative — Wed, 04 May 2022 06:28:06 +0000

An executive at Wisdomtree, an asset management firm with $78 billion under management, says that “Cryptocurrencies have firmly established themselves as a new asset class and it truly is something that people can’t ignore.” He added: “We are past the point where there is speculation around whether or not this is a trend that’s here to stay.”

Wisdomtree’s Executive on Crypto

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Jason Guthrie, head of digital assets for asset management firm Wisdomtree in Europe, talked about cryptocurrency during Ftadviser In Focus’ fireside chat Monday.

Wisdomtree, through its subsidiaries in the U.S. and Europe, is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) and exchange-traded product (ETP) sponsor and asset manager headquartered in New York. The firm offers products covering equity, commodity, fixed income, leveraged and inverse, currency, cryptocurrency, and alternative strategies. Wisdomtree currently has over $77.8 billion in assets under management globally, according to its latest filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Guthrie said, “We are past the point where there is speculation around whether or not this is a trend that’s here to stay,” emphasizing:

Cryptocurrencies have firmly established themselves as a new asset class and it truly is something that people can’t ignore.

He explained that investors will increasingly choose service providers based on their ability to gain access to the digital assets market.

The Wisdomtree executive added that many platforms are evolving strongly towards a “multi-blockchain future” with an emphasis on interoperability. He also noted that this has “broadened out the investment universe for a lot of people because it … means you’ve got opportunities to put capital to work against a variety of protocols.”

However, uncertainty over how the crypto space will evolve over the next decade has led to high volatility in the crypto market. Guthrie stressed that investors need to bear this in mind when investing in this new asset class.

“I don’t think anybody is out there advocating 50% of somebody’s portfolio should be in cryptocurrency. This is how you account for risk, by making risk-assessed allocations,” he opined. His asset management firm sees people allocating between 1% and 5% of portfolios into crypto as part of a risk-adjusted approach, similar to how they treat other asset classes, he conveyed.

Replying to a question about whether crypto could become mainstream, Guthrie affirmed:

Absolutely … We are already on the path to doing that.

He added, “2% or so of the global population is involved in crypto at the moment, that’s only going to grow.”

What do you think about the Wisdomtree executive’s comments? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Fidelity Launches Multi-Level Learning Center in Metaverse

Coinparative — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 08:38:14 +0000

Fidelity Investments, a major financial services firm with $11.3 trillion in assets under administration, has entered the metaverse with the opening of an eight-story learning center and the launch of a metaverse exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fidelity Stack features “a multi-level design complete with a lobby, dance floor, and rooftop sky garden for users to explore on foot – or even through teleport.”

Fidelity Enters the Metaverse

Fidelity Investments announced Thursday the grand opening of “The Fidelity Stack,” which the brokerage firm described as its “first immersive metaverse experience aimed at offering a new way to learn investing basics.” Fidelity is one of the largest financial services firms; it currently has $11.3 trillion in assets under administration.

The Fidelity Stack is an eight-story building in the metaverse where visitors can learn about different ways of investing. One whole floor is dedicated to providing information about Fidelity Metaverse ETF (FMET), the firm’s new exchange-traded fund focusing on metaverse investments. Fidelity explained:

The Fidelity Stack, built in Decentraland, features a multi-level design complete with a lobby, dance floor, and rooftop sky garden for users to explore on foot – or even through teleport.

“In the Invest Quest at The Fidelity Stack, users are challenged to traverse the building learning the basics of ETF investing while gathering ‘orbs’ along the way,” the announcement continues.

Decentraland is an Ethereum-based metaverse opened to the public in January 2020. In February, global investment bank JPMorgan chose Decentraland as the metaverse platform to open its lounge.

Kathryn Condon, head of marketing channels and emerging platforms at Fidelity, commented:

The way we engage with each other and with our money is rapidly changing, whether that’s through the rise of blockchain technology or development of a new digital universe. Our foray into the metaverse is designed with this in mind.

Last month, Citi predicted that the metaverse could be a $13 trillion opportunity with five billion users by the year 2030. Global investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley believe that the metaverse is an $8 trillion opportunity.

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How Will Businesses Use Web3 in the Metaverse

Coinparative — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 02:39:10 +0000

Business has not been “as usual” for the past few years now. The pandemic drastically changed the way many of us participate in our workplaces and has effectively reshaped the entire U.S. job market. The fact is, the vast majority of employees who can do their jobs from home are doing so. And in lew of face-to-face meetings, virtual offices are quickly gaining popularity.

But we’re not just talking about video calls and Zoom happy hours. Metaverse jobs are here – from software engineering roles to making sandwiches at a metaverse Subway. Even established, non-digitally native businesses are looking to become involved in the Web3 ecosystem and onboard their employees along the way.

The metaverse isn’t just a game anymore. Here’s why.

What Is Web3.0

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Web 3.0 (also known as web3) is the third iteration of the Internet that interconnects data in a decentralized way to deliver a faster and more personalized user experience. It is built using artificial intelligence, machine learning and the semantic web, and uses the blockchain security system to keep your information safe and secure.

Decentralization, openness and incredible user utility are the defining characteristics of web 3.0.

The idea behind using the semantic web is that it understands and interprets the context and concept of the data. Therefore, when a user searches for an answer, web 3.0 delivers the most accurate and relevant result to the end-user.

Tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft are some of the few companies currently making an enormous profit from user data. But web 3.0 will enable all of us to be compensated for our time and data: “people have been exploited by tech firms — essentially, deceived into giving valuable data away with little or no compensation from the firms who collect and benefit from it. Instead, [with web3] people should be paid for the data they share.”

This means that users will be able to sell their own data to advertisers while still retaining ownership and data privacy. In addition, web3 will enable websites and applications to use data more meaningfully and tailor the information to each user.

Hence, this third generation of the web is an Internet where you will enjoy personalized interactions with machines and websites in the same manner as when you communicate with any other human.

The metaverse is more than NFTs and VR games

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Right now, it seems like everyone is talking about the metaverse. The term skyrocketed in popularity last fall when Facebook changed its name to Meta. Since then, many have taken an interest in what the “metaverse” actually entails. Some are even finding it within their interests to secure a bit of virtual real estate.

The concept of the metaverse has been around for decades, but its recent resurgence is no random event. Just as blockchain tech (especially NFTs) has taken off over the past year, so too has the contemporary idea of living a fully digitized life.

Currently, the most established use-cases of metaverse technology are centered around either NFTs or gaming. Platforms like Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, and The Sandbox continue to incentivize users to build virtual dwellings, display and trade NFTs, and just generally engage in their gamified ecosystems.

Google’s Tilt Brush is a perfect example of how metaverse tech has helped expand the NFT ecosystem. Created to be a virtual version of a fully equipped painter’s studio, Tilt has become the livelihood of artists like Anna Zhilyaeva and Aimi Sekiguchi — who use the software to create immersive NFTs that often fetch a hefty sum.

We’ve even seen a multitude of NFT art galleries built in the metaverse, with Sotheby’s possibly taking the cake for the virtual version of their London headquarters. And institutions arent the only ones being incentivized to create galleries, as companies like OnCyber are making it easy for collectors of all levels to showcase their NFTs in the metaverse.

Difference Between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

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Before we dive further into web 3.0, we need to understand how we got here – via web 1.0 and web 2.0.

Here’s the brief history of the Internet:

Web 1.0 is a read-only web where people can read information written on websites.
Web 2.0 is a read-write web where people can read and write content on websites and applications.
Web 3.0 is a read-write-interact web (powered by artificial intelligence) where people can read, write and interact with content, including 3D graphics, on websites and apps. Sotheby’s Decentraland Gallery. Credit: Decentraland But what is the real utility of blockchain-based gaming? Is that all there is to the metaverse? Of course not. While these games are fun (no seriously, go mess around on Decentraland, it’s great), the real incentive of entering the metaverse is that it opens up a new avenue for interpersonal connections.

With open-world metaverse games, we’re able to meet a wide variety of people from the comfort of our homes. And these interactions have evolved far past the days of chat rooms and Omegle. With platforms like VR Chat and Meta’s Horizon Worlds, users can come face-to-face with people from all over the world.

Thanks to the early adopters of these virtual technologies, and the developers that have iterated on them, non-digitally native businesses can easily get involved in the metaverse.

It shouldn’t be surprising that there’s a market for enterprise-level solutions for organizational culture. I mean, we’ve all been begrudgingly hosting our meetings via Zoom or Google Meet since 2020. The need to improve upon these tools, and use technology to make remote work less isolating is evident.

Companies like Microsoft, Meta, and more are aiming to lead the pack when it comes to these solutions. Especially when it comes totaking aspects of the metaverse – open-world games, custom avatar creation, and VR capability – and adapting them for business

In the coming years, platforms like Meta’s Horizon Workrooms and Microsoft Mesh could make switching to a fully-remote work model more appealing to both employers and employees. Other companies aren’t far behind in their efforts to provide an alternative to the many developing Fortune 500 tech company-led solutions.

Rove, for one, is possibly one of the best business-focused metaverse platforms currently available. Aimed at expanding what’s possible in the metaverse, this new free-to-access metaverse project is providing use-cases that place importance on that aforementioned interpersonal connection.

With Rove, the metaverse can feel like a happy medium between fun and utilitarian. For artists wanting to create a 3D website/storefront for their products, users hoping to customize a virtual hangout space, and of course businesses looking for a more casual Web3 way to hold meetings, Rove has solutions.

What is Metaverse?

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To help you get a sense of how vague and complex a term “the metaverse” can be, here’s an exercise to try: Mentally replace the phrase “the metaverse” in a sentence with “cyberspace.” Ninety percent of the time, the meaning won’t substantially change. That’s because the term doesn’t really refer to any one specific type of technology, but rather a broad shift in how we interact with technology. And it’s entirely possible that the term itself will eventually become just as antiquated, even as the specific technology it once described becomes commonplace.

Broadly speaking, the technologies that make up the metaverse can include virtual reality—characterized by persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you’re not playing—as well as augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical worlds. However, it doesn’t require that those spaces be exclusively accessed via VR or AR. A virtual world, like aspects of Fortnite that can be accessed through PCs, game consoles, and even phones, could be metaversal.

It also translates to a digital economy, where users can create, buy, and sell goods. And, in the more idealistic visions of the metaverse, it’s interoperable, allowing you to take virtual items like clothes or cars from one platform to another. In the real world, you can buy a shirt from the mall and then wear it to a movie theater. Right now, most platforms have virtual identities, avatars, and inventories that are tied to just one platform, but a metaverse might allow you to create a persona that you can take everywhere as easily as you can copy your profile picture from one social network to another.

It’s difficult to parse what all this means because when you hear descriptions like those above, an understandable response is, “Wait, doesn’t that exist already?” World of Warcraft, for example, is a persistent virtual world where players can buy and sell goods. Fortnite has virtual experiences like concerts and an exhibit where Rick Sanchez can learn about MLK Jr. You can strap on an Oculus headset and be in your own personal virtual home. Is that really what “the metaverse” means? Just some new kinds of video games?

The range of spaces users can create in Rove. Credit: Rove
Imagine, instead of staring at name cards and frozen screens in a 10+ person video meeting, your entire team can don their own custom avatars, show up to a lounge area and flip on a virtual projector for a presentation. In Rove, all of this is possible. Users can even dress the office walls with the latest NFTs they’ve picked up – no coding skills necessary.

This line between the corporate and casual metaverse may very well be the gateway for businesses to become interested in fostering a Web3 organizational culture. And it seems even the newer players entering into the metaverse race understand this: that the interactive and accessible components of the metaverse are likely its biggest selling points.

Functionality that inspires creativity and vice versa. This seems to be the goal of many metaverse companies, possibly best exemplified by vSpace — an extended reality platform that features 3D video conferencing with a sort of plug-and-play nature. With Twitch, Vimeo, and YouTube integration all in one, the business tool focused on interpersonal connection almost feels like a game.

The metaverse is anything but static

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With each passing month, facets of everyday life are being integrated into the metaverse. Use-cases are growing rapidly, and just as quickly as gaming led to businesses getting involved, so too will Microsoft, Meta, Rove and the like help open the doors to the next big iteration.

The metaverse should be for everyone. Sure, it can be confusing, but the metaverse is here and it doesn’t just have to be an individualized experience anymore.

It’s unlikely that we’ll see companies begin to incentivize their entire workforces to show up virtually for a full 40-hour workweek anytime soon (well…unless you’re ZOAN). But now, onboarding your team into the metaverse can be as easy as scheduling a meeting.

Metaverse Company purchases ReKTGlobal in a 9-figure deal

Coinparative — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 09:06:59 +0000

A little-known metaverse company has acquired ReKTGlobal for close to half a billion dollars, and the acquisition signals a change of dispensation for the Esports Company.

ReKTGlobal Set for Leadership Change
April 12, 2022, marked the beginning of a new dispensation for ReKTGlobal and its assets. The parent company of the London Royal Ravens and the esports team, Rogue, was acquired for a fee of $470 million. The company announced the sale on its official Twitter page, stating that the deal signals the next chapter in their evolution into the metaverse. While the agreement is yet to be concluded, it would see the new owners acquire all the assets and brands currently owned by ReKTGlobal.

Interestingly, however, the new owners are a relatively unknown metaverse company called Infinite Reality. They were able to gain ownership of ReKTGlobal by purchasing almost half a billion USD worth of its stock. That gives Infinite Reality a significant portion of ReKTGlobal’s total stock which they evaluated as worth $2 billion in equity.

The acquisition of ReKTGlobal also gives Infinite Reality ownership of multiple businesses, which include Rogue and London Royal Ravens. Esports content production agency Greenlit Content and internet talent management company TalentX Entertainment are also part of the assets that the metaverse company will acquire at the end of the high-profile business deal.

ReKTGlobal Founder and Chairman Amish Shah stated in an interview with Forbes that the long-term goal for ReKTGlobal is to become a 10, 20, $30 billion company. And they believe they’ll achieve it faster with Infinite Reality.

Infinite Reality: Meet The New Owners
Infinite Reality is a company operating primarily in the metaverse space. The company results from the merger of Display Social, an eCommerce platform, Thunder Studios, and Infinite Metaverse, a metaverse builder.

Infinite Reality develops tools and provides services that help to improve end-user experience in the metaverse. The company essentially supports metaverse creators and brands by developing their content and distribution channels.

To create an open metaverse, they help creators develop content, databases, smart contracts, moderation, authentication systems, and tools for metaverse exploration. And we can expect them to commit all of their resources to expanding and growing ReKTGlobal.

Why Opensea become unicorn in the NFT trading market?

Coinparative — Sat, 16 Apr 2022 03:25:48 +0000

NFT Market size

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In the winter of ’18, the crypto market was close to collapse, with even blue-chip stocks like BTC and ETH down 90% from their all-time highs, and projects that once had grand visions were shutting down one after another. As other crypto projects gave up, OpenSea went live in February 2018, continuing to pursue its vision of becoming the “eBay of the crypto industry”. This persistence eventually paid off, as OpenSea became the most popular NFT marketplace, with a recent valuation of $13.3 billion.

Let’s look at the numbers. The table below compares the different NFT marketplaces based on the number of users, trading volume and ETH transactions in the last 30 days. These statistics come from DappRadar, which tracks various metrics of Ethernet applications by querying data on the Etherchain.

From the above, it is clear that OpenSea is already riding high, or should I say riding high (get it?). Get it?) [translation: the original may have been intended as a metaphor for the huge competitive advantage of water droplets over sand and dust]. In the last 30 days, it has facilitated about $4.5 billion worth of transactions (or 1.5 million ETH), far more than any of its competitors. Taken together, eBay has made about $6.6 billion worth of transactions per month in the last quarter.

The success of a project cannot be attributed to just a few factors; it requires a great product, a quality team, the right opportunity, and luck. It seems OpenSea has all of these, but we can still try to assess what exactly they did right to get to where they are now, and Opensea made those right choices.

About Opensea

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OpenSea is a game-changing decentralized marketplace for buying and selling NFTs. If you’re wondering, NFTs stands for Non-Fungible Tokens, which are unique, collectible digital things like in-game assets, avatars, trading cards, and art.

In August 2021 alone, OpenSea recorded well over $3.5 billion in NFT trading volume. Considering it posted just $21 million in volume during all of 2020, it’s safe to say the 12,000% trading activity rise firmly signals success.

Investors like Mark Cuban, Kevin Durant, Ashton Kutcher, and crypto powerhouse a16z have helped push OpenSea’s valuation to over $1 billion, giving the young NFT platform unicorn status seemingly overnight.

NFT collectors, artists, investors, and traders all rate OpenSea highly, but if you’re new to the platform, it’s pretty confusing. This beginner’s guide to OpenSea gives you an easy explanation of NFTs, what OpenSea is + how to use it, along with some of the best NFTs in the marketplace.

Quickly establish supply and demand

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As Lenny Rachitsky (former product manager at Airbnb) discusses in his newsletter, one of the biggest challenges in launching a marketplace can be described as the “chicken and egg problem. How do you convince suppliers to list their products when there are no users on the platform, and how do you get the attention of buyers if there are no products?

Most traditional marketplaces succeed by first establishing a supply channel, and so it is with OpenSea. As The Generalist reports, they do their best to build initial supply, which is perfectly summarized by Richard Chen (Partner at crypto investment firm 1confirmation) in the following quote.

“Devin and Alex (co-founders of OpenSea) did a great job of discovering new NFT projects in Discords and beating out Rare Bits (OpenSea’s strong competitor at the time) to successfully get these projects up and trading on OpenSea instead of Rare Bits . At the time of our investment in April 2018, OpenSea was trading at about 4x the volume of Rare Bits.” – Richard Chen

These efforts led to early OpenSea partnerships with several projects/artists, including supporting Axies (arguably the most popular Ether-based game), using its native token MANA to purchase Decentraland (an Ether-based virtual game similar to Minecraft), partnering with Major League Baseball to sell MLB digital collectibles, partnered with Deadpool Officials to sell digital collectibles, partnered with German soccer club Bayern Munich to list player cards NFT, and supported trading of ENS domains. This exhaustive list demonstrates the team’s passion for building stable supply partnerships with as many projects as possible, and its vision to cater to NFT in a wide range of categories such as gaming, art, sports, entertainment, and domain names.

OpenSea’s full speed ahead is fueled by the platform’s user-centric features that make it easy for vendors to get up and running with OpenSea. the NFT listing is license-free and does not require any approvals or complex approval processes. In addition, OpenSea creates a way to shift the cost of casting new NFTs on Ether from the seller to the buyer. Both of these features significantly lower the barrier to entry for budding artists/projects and greatly enhance the NFT inventory on the platform.

Once a steady supply is established, the traditional marketplace begins to focus on building demand, which is a bit easier for OpenSea, which defines itself as an NFT platform and gains early partners, and a steady stream of new projects begin to shelve NFTs on OpenSea, while bringing customers to OpenSea. Because OpenSea supports royalties on every sale of NFT, the projects themselves are incentivized and therefore encouraged to use OpenSea by their customers. in addition, the NFT mania that started in the summer of 2021 has driven the growth in demand for OpenSea. Once the crypto world embraces this non-DeFi use case for the blockchain and sets new transaction records on Ether, guess who will be there to facilitate this and make a fortune?

Maximize user experience

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As Sarah Tavel discusses in her blog post, marketplaces should not just focus on increasing supply, but also on implementing product features to maximize the user experience. Just like Uber through credit card senseless payments, Airbnb has made it easier for hosts to gain access to customers by creating a premium host program that rewards hosts who meet requirements with a special display badge. openSea has excelled in this area as well.

One of their major achievements is the implementation of a powerful filtering and sorting feature to easily discover NFTs. it may seem trivial, but it’s not. Each NFT collection has different characteristics and rarity, and OpenSea allows “custom” filtering and sorting to change based on the collection being viewed so that users can refine their search based on that particular collection.

Different filters for different collections

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They have taken specific steps to address the biggest problem plaguing NFT enthusiasts and Ether users in general – namely, the prohibitively high Gas fee, which is a fee charged per transaction on the Ether network and paid to the individuals running the network, aka miners. However, because demand for Ether is ridiculously high and the current capacity of the network is still quite low, the fee for each NFT transaction reaches anywhere from tens to hundreds of dollars (depending on network congestion). While OpenSea has no control over the Gas fees at the bottom of the Ethernet network, they have implemented several features that reduce these costs, at least to some extent.

They enable off-chain auctions so that the Gas fee is used only once during the final sale, allow off-chain auction prices to be lowered so that price changes do not require a Gas fee each time, and introduce “lazy one-click casting” so that artists can cast NFTs for free and the Gas fee is borne by the buyer. OpenSea is integrated with Polygon, a sidechain of Ether, which has lower interaction costs.

Opensea also maintains a focus on the financial side of the product, and OpenSea also allows the purchase of NFT using cryptocurrencies other than ETH, especially stablecoins such as Dai and USDC. This is especially useful because buying with ETH can trigger tax events in many countries, and using stablecoins is an easy way to avoid this.

Make the right choice

A good product is only one of the key elements of success, but not the only one. Every project faces a myriad of choices during its lifecycle, and the choices they make determine whether they ride the waves or capsize and sink. openSea has made many good choices on their journey to the top.

First and foremost is their belief in their mission. According to The Generalist, their strong belief is in something called ERC-721. This is a standard built by core Ether developers to specify the creation and transfer of NFTs on Ether. the creation of this standard means that the field is important enough to get the attention of Ether developers and that all future NFT projects will adhere to the standard. As a result, they have created a marketplace on top of the ERC-721 standard that can then support all future NFTs. by doing so, OpenSea provides a more convenient experience for buyers by aggregating NFT supply. Previously, each project had to create its own marketplace, for example, CryptoPunks and Axies had (and still do) their own NFT trading marketplace.

This belief in NFT is also what allowed them to survive the cryptocurrency winter of 2018. When the cryptocurrency market was down and not many projects were able to survive, OpenSea ran a lean team of seven employees, relying on constant transaction fees to keep the company afloat and continue to plow deeper into the industry.

But recently, they were faced with some tougher choices when a few bugs in the code led to many high-value NFTs being sold at lower prices. They decided to compensate the affected users for their losses. Likewise, in some cases, they froze the stolen NFTs. While they have been criticized by some for this, as it goes against the basic decentralized crypto spirit of the censorship boycott, these steps have certainly helped build trust with users.

If it were you, what would you do after conquering the world, and what would be the next step for OpenSea? You crush every competitor who dares to overthrow you and continue your dominance. This can be done either by being number one in your field by a large margin, or by expanding into other fields or tracks, or both.

OpenSea is already a dominant force in the NFT market. However, they face a real and potent threat from LooksRare, the market’s newest dark horse. This recently launched NFT marketplace has many advantages over OpenSea: it has lower fees than OpenSea and has native tokens, which makes it much more attractive to crypto natives, in addition to sharing all its fees with token holders. As you can see from the previous table, LooksRare has surpassed all other platforms and is approaching OpenSea’s volume and transaction amounts.

So will OpenSea launch its own token? It’s not that simple. As a U.S. company, OpenSea gets along well with U.S. regulators and cannot risk launching a token, which would only incur the wrath of regulators and thus hinder their operations. Therefore, the path forward for OpenSea is to maximize the user experience and potentially expand into other tracks. The following are some potential options.

Extending mobile,OpenSea already has a mobile app, but it is very limited and does not even allow trading NFT. the app requires abstracting the process of creating a wallet, storing a helper (which can be performed for advanced users) and complex Gas fee estimation. Basically, it allows a seamless access to use for crypto novices.
Explore NFT fragmentation, where the original owner of an NFT can split ownership into multiple smaller tokens, which others can then buy to share ownership of the NFT. Most people can’t afford blue-chip NFTs like BYAC and CryptoPunks right now, and such ownership will be in new demand. The original owners could benefit from the increased liquidity and potential “curator” fees from the sale of fragmented NFTs. Win-Win!
Consider partnering with a DeFi agreement (or create your own) to allow the use of NFTs as collateral to borrow money, starting with blue-chip NFTs, of course. This cross-sector collaboration could unlock a whole new user base and demand for OpenSea.
Non-transferable NFTs, Vitalik recently talked about non-transferable NFTs that have potential uses, such as awarding university degrees, land ownership, etc. While there are many considerations yet to be addressed (e.g., if owners want to move to other wallets of their own due to security concerns), OpenSea could lead the community discussion and perhaps even write an ERC standard for it! They could even explore the potential creation of a B2B solution, offering a non-transferable NFT solution for businesses that might want to use it.

conclusion

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It should be noted that some of the options mentioned above, such as the fragmentation of NFT and its utility as collateral, may expose OpenSea to regulatory scrutiny. So they must proceed with caution. In fact, regulation is a major potential hurdle that OpenSea needs to continue to be careful about, given the general uncertainty surrounding the regulation of all cryptocurrencies. In fact, as the dominant player in the crypto community, they may even consider lobbying for crypto-friendly laws to help the ecosystem move forward.

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What should you know about crypto lending

Coinparative — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 10:00:56 +0000

Crypto lending lets users borrow and lend cryptocurrencies for a fee or interest. You can instantly get a loan and start investing just by providing some collateral. This could be through a DeFi lending DApp or a cryptocurrency exchange. When your collateral falls below a certain value, you will need to top it up to the required level to avoid liquidation. When you return your loan plus a fee, your capital is unlocked.

You can also get collateral-free loans known as flash loans, which you must pay back within the same transaction. If you cannot do this, the lending transaction is reversed before it has the chance to be finalized. Crypto loans make borrowing and lending simple, and the process is completely automated by smart contracts. For many, it’s an easy way to earn APY on crypto assets they HODL or access cheap credit.

However, just like any project, smart contract, or investment on the blockchain, crypto lending also involves financial risk. For example, if you use a volatile coin as collateral, you can be liquidated overnight. Smart contracts can also be hacked, attacked, or exploited, which often leads to big losses.

Before borrowing or lending, understand that you will lose custody of your coins. This removes them from your control and reduces your liquidity. Take note of all the terms and conditions of the loan to understand when you can access your funds and any fees involved. You can start taking loans out with your Binance account today by heading to the Crypto Loans page.
What is crypto lending?
Crypto lending is an ingenious instrument to obtain the cash you need quickly, as it allows you to utilize your crypto holdings as security to get secure loans. If you are wondering how do I borrow crypto, collateralized crypto lending is a viable solution. It allows borrowers to use their crypto assets as collateral to get a fiat or stablecoin loan.

Crypto lending works by taking crypto from one user and providing it to another for a fee. The exact method of managing the loan changes from platform to platform. You can find crypto lending services on both centralized and decentralized platforms, but the core principles remain the same.

This enables you to get the money without having to sell your coins, use the cash to fulfill your objectives and then repay to get back the hold on your assets. Crypto loans allow you to use digital assets you hold to generate dividends by lending out part or whole of the holdings.

Crypto lending platforms play a key role in dispensing such loans. Generally, you can borrow up to 50% of the value of your digital assets, though some platforms might allow you to borrow even more. Crypto loans generally don’t have a concept like EMI and borrowers may repay when they can before the fixed term ends. As for the interest rates, it is approximately 4% on Celsius Network on popular non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies.

As for the question, is lending crypto profitable, it depends on a string of factors. If you default on your debts, you end up losing your assets. Inconsistencies integral to crypto assets have led to more takers to stablecoin lending. On Celcius Network and Nexo, stablecoin lenders can earn 8%, while on Compound Finance — a decentralized crypto lending platform — the lending annual percentage rate (APR) for Dai (DAI) and USD Coin (USDC) is 12% and 9%, respectively.

How does stablecoin lending work?

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When it comes to interest rates, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and borrowing models are closely influenced by the supply and demand scenario. A high volume of loans coupled with a low supply from lenders means high returns for lenders. However, if the demand for crypto loans is low and the supply from lenders is high, the interest rate for borrowers will be low to attract the borrowers.

If you are considering why do stablecoins have high-interest rates, this section may come across as quite informative. The principle idea of supply and demand leads to stablecoin lending, providing annual returns in double digits. Stablecoins are still a budding industry, being just 2-3% of the total crypto market capitalization.

On the lending platforms, a substantial amount of the lending supply comes from stablecoins. Many buy these coins only to lend them on these platforms, but it’s alarmingly low compared to the supply of the top cryptocurrencies. Take the case of Compound Finance, where Ether (ETH) has 50% more gross supply than DAI and USDC combined.

Contrast it with the demand and you will find the figures are staggering. On Compound Finance, the demand for DAI trumps that of ETH by nearly 40 times. Large institutional traders and cryptocurrency payment processors are behind the huge demand for DAI. Institutional traders include the hedge funds and market makers clubbing on crypto loans for speculation purposes.

How does crypto lending work?

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Just like a securities-based loan, a cryptocurrency-backed loan collateralizes digital currency. Basically, it resembles a mortgage loan. You give hold of your crypto assets to get the loan and repay it over a predetermined time. These types of loans can be obtained through a crypto lending platform or a crypto exchange. Though you still retain ownership of the collateralized crypto, you forego the right to make transactions using digital coins.

Crypto loans come across as a viable option because of several advantages such as low interest rates, choice of loan currency, lack of credit check, fast funding and the ability to earn passive income on your crypto that is otherwise lying idle. Moreover, you can lend your own digital coins and receive a high APY (more than 10%) on several crypto platforms.

All crypto lending transactions have two distinct parties: the borrower and the lender. It is for the borrower to deposit crypto assets as collateral to secure the loan from the lender. The arrangement works to mutual advantage, as the borrower receives an immediate loan in return for their crypto assets while the lenders earn interest on the amount released as a loan. If the borrower defaults, they dispose of the underlying crypto assets to realize their money.

Famous crypto lending projects

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Aave
Aave is an Ethereum-based DeFi protocol that offers various crypto loans. You can both lend and borrow, as well as enter liquidity pools and access other DeFi services. Aave is perhaps most famous for its work in popularizing flash loans. To lend funds, you deposit your tokens into Aave and receive aTokens. These act as your receipt, and the interest you earn depends on the crypto you are lending.
Abracadabra
Abracadabra is a multi-chain, DeFi project that allows users to stake their interest-bearing tokens as collateral. Users gain interest-bearing tokens when they deposit their funds in a lending pool or yield optimizer. Holding the token gives you access to your original deposit plus the interest earned.
You can further unlock the value of your interest-bearing tokens by using them as collateral for a Magic Internet Money (MIM) stablecoin loan. One strategy would be to deposit stablecoins in a yield-farming smart contract and then use the interest-bearing tokens to generate MIM. As long as your stablecoins don’t experience volatility, the chances of liquidation will remain low.

Binance
Apart from its exchange services, Binance offers a range of other crypto financial products for users to lend, borrow, and earn passive income. If you don’t want to access DApps and manage a DeFi wallet yourself, using a CeFi (centralized finance) option can be much easier. Binance gives access to simple crypto-collateral loans across many tokens and coins, including Bitcoin (BTC), ETH, and BNB. Funds for these loans come from Binance users who want to earn interest on their HODLed crypto.
Should you lend crypto?
You may be eager to know if crypto lending is safe. Before you go active on a crypto platform as a lender, make sure you are well-versed with the specifics. When you move your crypto to any platform for lending, they hold access to the keys to the cryptocurrency — not you. You just have the bond issued by the smart contract. Check the auditing standards of the smart contract, the history of the project and its team can help you guide your decisions.

If you begin lending with your eyes closed, do not be surprised if your crypto disappears. QuadrigaCX, for instance, is nothing less than a horror story. A Netflix documentary discussed the suspicious death of Gerald Cotton, the founder of QuadrigaCX, the Canadian cryptocurrency exchange and how he misappropriated customer funds. About $190 million worth of digital assets kept on the exchange were lost.

To sum up, you need to do your due diligence before taking a call on the platform you’d be using for lending and borrowing. Regardless of the lending platform, knowing your game and limitations is extremely important when it comes to successful innings. A mistake might prove costly, so better put in the best of your exploratory skills to work.

Closing thoughts

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When done responsibly, crypto lending platforms provide value to both the borrower and lender. HODLers now have another option to earn passive income, and investors can unlock the potential of their funds by using them as collateral. Whether you choose a DeFi or CeFi project to manage your loans, understand the conditions involved and make sure to prioritize using a trusted platform. Blockchain technology has made it easier than ever to access and provide credit, making crypto loans a powerful tool for those who are interested.

https://www.coinparative.com/insights/explainer/what-should-you-know-about-crypto-lending/

How to Sell Your Photos As NFT

Coinparative — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 05:11:46 +0000

What Is an NFT?

An NFT is a digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items and videos. They are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency, and they are generally encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptos.

NFT photography has been a boon for artists, allowing them to sell their work easier than ever before. To be sure, when it comes to selling photos, NFTs offer huge advantages over traditional models. By the same token, NFT photography collections have inspired a whole new wave of photography lovers to start collecting pictures from their favorite artists.

So without further ado, let’s explore NFT photography – why it’s so promising, some of the early pioneers in the field, and how you can get started selling NFT photography right now.

NFT Trends

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While they have been around since 2014, NFTs are now gaining notoriety as they are becoming an increasingly popular way to buy and sell digital art. Since November 2017, a staggering $174 million has been spent on NFTs.

NFTs are also usually unique, or at least a very limited number of them, and have a unique identification code.” Essentially, NFTs create digital scarcity,” said Arry Yu, chairman of the Cascadia Blockchain Committee of the Washington Technology Industry Association and managing director of Yellow Umbrella Ventures.

This is in contrast to most digital creations, which are almost always in unlimited supply. Hypothetically, cutting off supply should raise the value of a particular asset, assuming it’s in demand.

But many NFTs, at least in these early days, are digital creations that already exist in some form elsewhere, such as iconic video clips of NBA games or securitized versions of digital art already circulating on Instagram.

Famed digital artist Mike Winklemann, better known as “Beeple,” combined 5,000 daily paintings to create what may be the most famous NFT of 2021, “EVERYDAYS. The First 5,000 Days,” which sold at Christie’s for a record-breaking $69.3 million.

Anyone can view individual images – or even entire collages of images – online for free. So why are people willing to spend millions of dollars on something they can easily screenshot or download?

Because NFT allows buyers to own the original item. Not only that, but it includes built-in authentication as proof of ownership. Collectors value these “digital bragging rights” almost more than the items themselves.

Why Does Photography Make For A Good NFT?

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While countless things can – and eventually will – be represented as NFTs, there are obviously some existing mediums that make for an incredibly smooth transition into NFTs right now. And photography is certainly one of them.

For one thing, most photography these days exists completely digitally. Even photos shot on film are scanned and turned into digital files more often than not. Given this, photos are perfect assets to exist as NFTs.

Another amazing thing about photography NFTs is that they can secure royalties for their creators. For those who don’t know, the ability to write perpetual royalties into smart contracts is a major reason why NFTs have gotten so popular with all kinds of artists. This is great for photographers who would usually only get paid for the first sale of a print, stock photo, or a commission, if they got paid for their work at all.

By the same token, the growth of NFTs has taken away the need for middlemen when it comes to selling photography. Whether in the form of galleries, outlets or even social media sites like Instagram, photographers and other artists have long relied on middlemen. Now, with NFTs, photographers have far more options to sell their pictures.

How To Mint Your Photos On The Blockchain

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Fortunately, NFT photographers have many options for minting and selling their pictures. Not to mention the fact that the options for NFT creators in general, and NFT photography in particular, are growing every single day.

Mint them on NFT Marketplaces Specifically For Photography
Quantum Art

Quantum Art is a photography-centric NFT marketplace co-founded by none other than Twin Flames co-founder Justin Aversano. Its goal is to provide a highly curated hub of quality NFT photography.

To that end, it operates similarly to the Art Blocks generative NFT art platform. That is to say that it has both a section of NFT photos curated by the Quantum team, and a community section that has the community of Quantum collectors vote on which collections to feature.

While Quantum Art is somewhat new, its co-founder’s major credibility in the field of NFT photography positions it as a potential leader in the field. To say nothing of the $7.5 million it recently raised to further develop the marketplace.

Savage

Savage is an NFT marketplace specifically for 8K photos and videos. The marketplace, currently in Beta, offers several amazing features for both amateur and professional NFT photographers.

To list a few, this includes a 98% payout to creators, which beasts most traditional and NFT marketplaces; a flat minting fee of $10; Stripe integration allowing buyers to purchase NFT photos via card or crypto, and its use of Polygon, resulting in lower gas fees and environmental impact.

Cheeze

Cheeze is an NFT entertainment and media company focused on photography NFTs. As part of that, NFT photographers will be able to sell their NFTs on its upcoming Cheeze Marketplace. Notably, the marketplace will be available for both iOS and Android and will allow USD and cryptocurrency transactions.

Although it has not yet launched, Cheeze’s list of high-profile backers certainly bodes well for the new marketplace entrant.

Use A Popular No-Code Marketplace

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As far as options for non-photography-specific NFT marketplaces, budding NFT photographers have an abundance of options to choose from. Of course, there is a tradeoff – the bigger audience of potential buyers on these platforms makes it harder to stand out. By the same token, NFT photography naturally gets less of a spotlight than on marketplaces that were created with it specifically in mind.

In any case, there are many platforms that provide creators with the tools to mint and sell NFTs with no coding knowledge required whatsoever.

There’s always the option to mint NFT photos on some of the major NFT marketplaces like Rarible, Foundation, Known Origin, and OpenSea. As far as non-Ethereum NFT marketplaces you can include Solana’s Exchange Art and Magic Eden, and Tezos’ Objkt and Hic et Nunc, among others.

For more information on some of the best no-code NFT creation tools out there, be sure to check out our guide on the subject.

Hire A Developer To Do It Professionally
This option is certainly the most involved, and honestly, it’s probably only suited in cases where it’s absolutely necessary. Especially for people just getting their start in NFT photography.

If you want to create a collection of NFT photos that grants significant additional utilities, need a bespoke smart contract, want people to buy NFT pictures directly from your website, or want 100% control over your collection, then hiring a professional Web3 developer could be beneficial.

Again, while this can have certain advantages, it’s undoubtedly a more costly option. Plus, given the ability to create custom contracts with platforms like Manifold, it’s easier than ever to gain more control over your smart contracts with low or no upfront costs (Manifold Studio is actually free to use!).

What kind of photos sell in the NFT Market?

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Fortunately, there is a wide variety of NFT photography that has done well in the NFT space. To be sure, there are some genres that photographers in the space have favoured up to this point. For example, urban photography and landscapes are very common to see.

With that said, what seems to be a clearer factor in which NFT photos are successful is the style and story behind the actual pictures and the people that take them. Portrait series, photographs of rare cars, photojournalism, and collections of storytelling photos have all performed well in the space.

As cliché as it may sound, there is no formula. That being said, NFT photos with great storytelling and a clear and authentic voice are always more likely to find an audience. Equally important is taking care to establish a signature visual style as early as possible.

To that end, here are a few NFT photographers who have established just that in their work.

Some exciting NFT photographers to follow

Julie Pacino (@Julie_Pacino)
Julie Pacino is a visual artist who creates evocative art through photography and film. Growing up immersed in the film industry, she had been growing her skills as a photographer for years before immersing herself in the NFT space in 2021.

Her first collection of 100 NFT photos, I Live Here Now, sold out in less than 30 minutes. It also led to her selection as an artist for TIME magazine’s first-ever TIMEPieces NFT collection. Pacino followed up with a second NFT photography collection, Keepers of The Inn, which is tied to a larger Web3 film project she is currently working on.

You can learn more about Julie’s NFT journey from her interview with NFTevening.

Aimos Vasquez (@IAMAIMOS)
Pedro “Aimos” Vasquez is a New York-based, self-taught photographer. As a child of Dominican immigrants and a native of New York, the artist’s mission is to uplift the voices of underrepresented people through his art.

Vasquez cut his teeth collaborating with brands and taking breathtaking photographs of live performances featuring some of the biggest musicians in the world. His most famous work, Love Is War, sold at auction on the BlockParty marketplace back in 2021. The portrait of the late rapper XXXTentacion also holds the distinction of being one of the all-time most commented on photographs on Instagram.

Brittany Pierre (@redactedpride)
Brittany Pierre is a perfect example of a photographer who has built a thriving career by selling NFT photography. As reported by CNBC in a profile of Pierre, her steady NFT sales allowed her to finally pursue photography as her full-time career.

Pierre’s work and overall mission revolve around empowering Black and other underrepresented people. As she notes in the CNBC profile, “I definitely think that not only NFTs, but crypto in general, can help marginalized people, especially the Black community.” To that end, much of the Chicago-based artist’s work revolves around Black joy and the Black American experience.

Rizacan Kumas (@KumasRizacan)
Rizacan Kumas is a visual storyteller and documentary photographer. Kumas’ different NFT collections reflect his world travels and the various cultures in the places he has visited.

Certainly, much of Kumas’ work falls somewhere in the realm of photojournalism. That is to say that the photographer captures people around the world in their homes and local surroundings. In particular the photographer’s NFTs focus on telling stories through the emotions of the people that feature in the images.

It should go without saying but this is far from an exhaustive list. Not to mention that some readers may be wondering about the omission of a few of NFT photography’s biggest names.

Indeed, Twin Flames creator Justin Aversano, Where My Vans Go creator Drift and Drive creator Dave Krugman to have some of the best-selling NFT photos in the space. We wrote about them and others in a previous guide on NFT photographers and platforms. You can check out that piece here.

Famous creators and subjects of NFT Photography

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Unsurprisingly, we’ve already seen a number of high-profile people and non-crypto native photographers and artists selling NFT photography over the past few months.

One of the most famous examples is Saudi Princess and art gallerist Reem Al Faisal who launched an NFT photography collection, Mekkah and Madinah, back in February. Then there’s the acclaimed photographer Frederic Auerbach who released an NFT collection featuring A-list celebrities in November 2021.

And institutions are in on the budding space as well. Associated Press put out its first NFT collection in October 2021. Shortly afterwards it even announced its own marketplace for NFT photography. Although after some public missteps, its launch timeline is unclear at the moment.

Other standout NFT pictures that have launched recently include some never before seen photographs of iconic rock band Nirvana. There are even NFT photos of the International Space Station!

Marketing Your Photography Drop

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As with most business endeavors, marketing your NFT photography can be more than half the battle when it comes to selling pictures as NFTs. At the end of the day, no matter how good your art is, you still have to put in the time to put your NFT photos in front of as many people as possible.

When it comes to NFTs, it’s all about the community. Interacting and forming bonds within the community is by far the best way to push your artwork out there. And NFT photography works the same way.

Another thing to be aware of is not putting out too much content too soon. It’s better to focus on selling out well-priced 1-of-1s and smaller collections for those just getting started in the space.

NFT Photography accounts to follow

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Following the top NFT photographers in the space (like those mentioned above) is a great start. Besides getting the latest updates on their own collections, they frequently showcase the works of other photographers and up-and-comers selling their NFTs.

Even better if you engage with their tweets as you can start conversations with them. As well as with other NFT photography enthusiasts who will be doing the same. Many of these artists even have their own Discord servers – whether for themselves or for specific projects.

There are also accounts dedicated to highlighting NFT photography. Celebrate NFT Photography (@photographyNFTs) and NFT Photographers.xyz (@NFTPhotograph) are two such pages.

Another artist we haven’t yet mentioned is Jonny Melon (@jonny_melon). Aside from being a talented NFT photographer selling his own NFT photography, Jonny frequently highlights all kinds of NFT pictures on his page. In addition, he writes about NFT photography on the blog linked to his page.

Best places to display NFT photography

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From a marketing standpoint, Twitter may well be the best place to display your NFT photography. It’s where the community lives, and you can easily link to the marketplaces where your art is available.

Beyond that, you can get as creative as you want. Many people like to display NFT pictures in online galleries and metaverse platforms. And of course, as NFTs grow in popularity, there are more and more opportunities to display NFT photos and other artworks in IRL art galleries. These can be especially good when it comes to selling NFT photography.

Best events for NFT photographers
The rapid rise of interest in NFTs has led to more and more NFT events happening across the world. There’s everything from one-off gallery shows for NFT artists, to full-blown conferences with events catering to NFT photography.

A great example is the ‘NFT NYC Photowalk Through Central Park’. This will take place on June 22nd, during the 2022 edition of NFT NYC. What’s more, events are constantly popping up so it helps to search online to see what kinds of events could be happening near you.

In conclusion, there are endless opportunities arising that make selling NFT photography more feasible. Whether you’re a long-time professional, or a hobbyist looking for new ways to expand on your craft, turning your awesome pictures into NFTs is an avenue that is well worth exploring.

How to Sell your NFT at Marketplace

First you’ll need to make, or ‘mint’ your NFT. To make an NFT of your artwork, you’ll need to choose an NFT platform and a payment wallet, the latter of which you’ll need to use to pay fees – and to receive any payment if you’re lucky enough to sell your NFT.

There are lots of online platforms you can use to make and sell an NFT. Some of the most popular NFT auction platforms include OpenSea, Rarible, SuperRare, Nifty Gateway, Foundation, VIV3, BakerySwap, Axie Marketplace and NFT ShowRoom. See our guide to NFT marketplaces for a comparison of some of the most popular options.

There are plenty of NFT payment platforms too, with Coinbase, MetaMask, Torus, Portis, WalletConnect, MyEtherWallet and Fortmatic some of the best known. For illustrative purposes, we’ll show the process involved in making and selling an NFT using the NFT platform Rarible and the cryptocurrency payment platform MetaMask.

You could consider using any of the platforms mentioned above, and many more besides, and in most cases, you’ll follow a similar process. We recommend checking the fees involved as closely as possible before choosing (we’ll come back to the fees later).

Source: https://www.coinparative.com/nft-news/how-to-sell-your-photos-as-nft/

EDIT

Everything You Need To Know About CryptoPunks NFT

Coinparative — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 09:44:46 +0000

CryptoPunks is a game on the blockchain that allows you to collect and trade unique digital assets, called CryptoPunks. These assets are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) that can be used to represent anything that has value. CryptoPunks are generated on-chain, and each one is unique. You can buy, sell, or trade them on exchanges, or use them in games and applications.

CryptoPunks is among the first non-fungible token collections in the Ethereum blockchain. It was first launched by studio Larva Labs in the year 2017 but was later acquired by the Yuga labs who are currently in charge. It’s comprised of 10 thousand unique art images that describe the nature of humans. There is also another set of different types of punks that are seen to be more valuable due to their scarce population. These include apes (24 in number), aliens (about 9) and zombies (approximately 88). Every crypto punk has an ability to possess 87 unique characteristics known as “traits” that includes things like necklaces, hats, eye patches, earrings, and pipes.
A single crypto punk holds a maximum number of 7 traits but only one crypto punk with the exact numbers exist, (#punk 8348). It has a big beard, classic shades, buck teeth, earrings, top hat, mole and a cigarette. Some punks can also hold zero traits with most of them having two-three punks, this explains how the number of traits a punk holds affects its scarcity and value.

How to purchase CryptoPunks NFTs.
People joining the NFT space will sure come across punks sooner than they expected and after that, they will understand why punks are priceless assets. Let’s take a look at the price viewpoint: in the year 2017, an alien punk was traded for about 8 ETH which roughly rounds up to about $2,000. At that time people thought it was a ludicrous offer for a joint photographic experts group. However, almost four years later in 2021, the same punk was traded for about 4,200 ETH which sums up an amount of approximately $7.55 million. Currently, the sales are high ranging around 60-100 ETH showing how prices are less or more stabilized.
With the right amount of funds in your wallet, you are able to purchase a punk of your own on Open Sea. auctioning houses have also taken the market by storm by selling punks, you can be lucky and acquire your asset at a special sale. Developing the punk marketplace by revealing more traditional art space was a huge step and all credit should be given to Christie’s auctioning company. In March, they presented a set of 9 crypto punks for sale and received about $16.5 million.
Why are punks so expensive?
Over the years, crypto punks have gained a reputation of status and a tool of investment. G money is among the buyers of crypto punks and explains that he only bought it because he wanted the status that came with the punk. He states that with a non-fungible token, you may post it as your avatar on discord and Twitter and immediately flex with a picture. “it literary contains the same effect as wearing a Rolex watch in the real life but digitally” he adds. Once inside the NFT community, you tend to see punk owners as visionaries and builders in that they foresaw where NFTs were heading and got ahead of the curve and due to these reasons, they are now given the assumption of status and trust, in fact, most of the collectors have developed projects, personas, brand and even communities with only a single punk NFT.

People tend to argue that possessing a crypto punk is like wanting to bet on the importance of the Ethereum blockchain and the NFTs. Those who were involved in supporting crypto punks earlier didn’t get into the project by chance as they had to be involved with crypto early enough. This explains how valued the project is because of its significance in history and its representation in the belief of Ethereum. Currently, the race to crypto punks is pilling day by day with capitalists, ventures, hedge funds and even celebrities striving for it without minding the ratio of social to financial values. It is simply impossible to discount a project that turned many collectors into millionaires in just one night. Due to the early securing of success, the collection continues to be extremely valuable with everyone in the NFT community hoping for a repeat.

Final thoughts.
Finally, with only a few years of age, crypto punk has managed to be a legal project in the non-fungible token space and the information about it has been out in the open for several years. Crypto punks were born and they will continue to exist immutably on the Ethereum blockchain.

Source: https://www.coinparative.com/insights/explainer/everything-you-need-to-know-about-cryptopunks-nft/

Coinparative: Blockchain Trends in 2023

Coinparative — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 09:37:32 +0000

Coinparative points out that unemployment will rise and recession will intensify in 2021 due to the COVID-19, but after analyzing the application of blockchain technology in multiple fields such as government, healthcare, and life sciences, they believe that the blockchain technology market will be able to reach $21 billion in output value by 2030.

Focus on two major directions in 2022

All aspects of blockchain, digital assets and financial services are already changing in 2021, and the new crown epidemic is just one of the reasons for the changes. As a means of exchanging and storing value, the concept of "everything can be digitalized" has become widespread, and the rise of new business models for digital assets has brought particularly far-reaching challenges and implications for the global financial services industry.

There is a core proposition about the "impossible triangle" in the blockchain field, which is security, performance and decentralization respectively. This proposition is fundamental to the evolution of blockchain technology. Whether it is Bitcoin or Ether, or the Union Chain that is developing vigorously, it is essentially a trade-off between the above three elements.

As the core position of ethereum among blockchain developers is established, performance gradually becomes the bottleneck of its development, so in the foreseeable 2022, the improvement on performance and efficiency will be a long-term and critical issue.

Another major attraction of blockchain technology is "governance". The contractual relationship required by traditional governance is based on the premise of mutual trust between people, but after the birth of blockchain technology, the contractual spirit required for "governance" is gradually completed by code consensus. The opinions in the community are rewritten by smart contracts into a language that can be understood by computers, and ultimately decided by users using "token". This new "governance" model has been discussed recently and is a major direction to watch.

Global Regional Property Growth

According to Coinparative's analysis, the global blockchain market size is expected to grow from $411.5 million in 2017 to $7,683.7 million in 2022, translating into a CAGR of 79.6%. Expanding blockchain-as-a-service applications, rising cryptocurrency market capitalization, streamlined business processes, and improving transparency and security will significantly increase the growth rate of the blockchain market. The payments segment may account for the largest share of the blockchain market by 2022, and the fastest growing region will be Asia Pacific, where the global blockchain technology market will be $5.92 billion by 2021 and is expected to reach a record high of $21.07 billion by the end of 2030, translating to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.4%, reflecting the incredible potential of blockchain.

However, Fortune questions this, as blockchain deals have been trending downward since 2019 and venture capital funding has been declining; Fortune suggests that enterprise blockchain may be moving toward maturity by weeding out smaller start-ups as capital such as Medici Ventures increases the size of its projects. Maturity.

Overall, the new pneumonia epidemic may change the way consumers interact with businesses, and if blockchain technology can seize this opportunity, it may quickly gain traction in business networks.

Global Enterprise Demand for Blockchain Technology

In the 2021 market, the large enterprise sector accounts for more than 68.0% of global revenues. Large enterprises operating in industries such as insurance, financial services, healthcare and supply chain are increasingly striving to digitize their offerings, creating a demand for blockchain technology within them. large enterprises such as BBVA, Intesa Sanpaolo, Barclays Bank and HSBC are using blockchain technology to streamline their KYC and funding processes. They have access to sufficient capital and different assets to adopt new technologies introduced in the market.

The small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segment is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. SMEs are facing difficulties in expanding their tasks such as financing, processing payments, and selecting ancillary services that are crucial for global expansion. Blockchain technology helps them to reduce problems in the area of subsidies and exchange accounts. In addition, blockchain technology provides secure information exchange and smart contracts to help SMEs streamline their supply chains. In addition, blockchain-based storage applications enable small businesses to store data securely and cost-effectively, which is driving the demand for blockchain among small businesses.

Coinparative also mentioned that the increasing adoption of blockchain technology in several countries in Asia Pacific such as: Singapore, China and India, among other emerging economies, is expected to create growth opportunities for market participants in Asia Pacific over the forecast period.

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Coinparative is a professional blockchain research agency and digital news platform. coinparative covers blockchain and cryptocurrency news and blockchain industry insights from around the world. The goal is to meet the needs of blockchain beginners, enthusiasts, practitioners, investors and any type of readers.

Official website: www.coinparative.com

Coinparative :crypto media companies next trends?

Coinparative — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 12:04:11 +0000

The digital currency craze is leading to a slew of new media companies that aim to win market share as interest in cryptocurrencies grows. According to a recent report by U.S. crypto exchange Gemini, 14% of the population owns cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Ethereum. The report further found that 13% of respondents intend to purchase digital assets in the next year. Online searches for information about crypto are also on the rise. This is creating an opportunity for media companies to generate more ad revenue.

The risk these media companies faced for a long time was that the crypto market could dissolve at any time. But with the growth in ownership of cryptocurrencies, that doesn’t seem likely to happen soon.

In the meantime, crypto media firms have to contend with running a new business in an events industry largely depleted by the pandemic. While virtual events still exist, the revenue from ticket sales and sponsorships is not nearly as significant, industry observers said.

Crypto media companies also have to compete with social media platforms that have consumed most of the ad revenue that used to flow to news companies. Ben Schiller, a managing editor at CoinDesk, told Fortune that crypto media firms have to compete with these platforms not only for money but for clout and attention.

Like in the mainstream tech industry, many of the influential crypto leaders typically turn to platforms like Twitter and Medium to get their message out, rather than use media outlets as intermediaries, Schiller said.

One thing they don’t have to worry about in the short term is market growth. The market valuation for cryptocurrency is projected to cross $1.8 billion by 2027, according to Global Market Insights. The growing demand for digital assets and secure transactions is expected to contribute significantly to market growth, the firm said.

About Coinparative

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Coinparative is a digital news and research media outlet focused on cryptocurrencies, digital assets and blockchain. Coinparative covers worldwide blockchain and crypto news, industry insight and research to meet the needs of blockchain beginners, enthusiasts, practitioners, investors and any type of readers.

Coinparative are building the most influential, trusted information platform for a global community engaged in the transformation of the financial system and the emerging crypto economy. Tokencamps is an integrated platform for media, events, data & assets management for the next generation of investing and the future of money.

Tokencamps AMA talks about the metaverse: what long-term opportunities will it bring?

Coinparative — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:49:58 +0000

As one of the top ten Internet buzzwords in 2021, the metaverse has been a hot mess this year, with all kinds of capital pouring in. Under the buzz, we need to be more rational. Although the metaverse represents the future direction of technology development, it is still in the early stage of construction and needs to be upgraded to grow gradually.

On March 20, our community hosted an online AMA with tokencamps founder Keaden to share why high-performance computing and creator protection are extremely important in the growth of the metaverse.

A decentralized cloud computing network is an essential infrastructure for the metaverse

Currently, traditional cloud service providers, represented by Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, are still the dominant players.

A centralized network is a single enterprise that provides all the infrastructure using a limited number of locations and a handful of networks. If you want to scale, these solutions are often very expensive because only a limited number of providers can offer the service. Also, they can only provide facilities in a limited number of locations/countries, which means you can't get the best performance when your network has to connect with global users.

The following is a compilation of the content of this sharing.

It's great to welcome keaden as a guest on today's AMA Syndicate to discuss the hot meta-universe with the community of voiceovers.

First of all, please introduce yourselves and your main crypto areas of interest.

Keaden: Hi everyone I'm keaden and I'm one of the founders of tokencamps. Tokencamps is a digital news and research media outlet focused on cryptocurrencies, digital assets and blockchain. Tokencamps covers worldwide blockchain and crypto news, industry insight and research to meet the needs of blockchain beginners, enthusiasts, practitioners, investors and any type of readers.

Please tell us how you see the metaverse.

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Keaden: The concept of a metaverse is now a big hit, with some ideas that it is a parallel world to reality, like the one described in "Top Gun" or in some game like "My World" or "sandbox", where you put on VR and go to another world where you can start another life; or like the deomo of Zuckerberg's meta, which is a virtual world similar to the real one. sandbox", put on VR and go to another virtual world where you can start another life; or as Zuckerberg's meta deomo describes, it is a virtual world similar to the real world. Relying on the technology of VR and AR to allow people to go to new worlds, based on that kind of imagination, it has been possible to achieve experiences that are currently unattainable in the flesh.

This is the metaverse that most people imagine nowadays, but there is another view, that is, when our digital life is more important than our physical life, that is, the metaverse is not another world, but a point in time in the future, it is not independent of our world, but our future.

In fact, our contemporary life is running to "that" metaverse, our payment, our entertainment, are quietly changing because of the development of technology in the information age.

It may take us more than 20 years to reach that meta-universe, where the focus of people's lives on electronic information gradually overtakes their physical lives, and that is the meta-universe.

The metaverse, for now, is an online, immersive space where users can learn, work, play and socialize in an environment different from the current one.

I first learned about the metaverse through the movie "Top Gun", but of course, some scholars insist that it is not a real metaverse, in fact, everyone's understanding may be fragmented, so I do not want to define "it" here. I'm going to talk about some of the things that the meta-universe might need to be able to find in Crypto

No need for centralization, preferably decentralization, because the universe is fluid and not controlled by "that hand".

2, no rules, but also to decentralize, so the need for DAO governance, the need for a more fair and just way to develop.

3、Spanning, we say the world is multi-dimensional, so only accessible across to have better links, is this and "cross-chain" some relationship?

4, the relationship of rights, especially the arrival of Web3, all things will have an identity, and the identity is unique, such as each person has its own exclusive "0x".

There are many more, so I won't list them all here. But I've been thinking about a question that hasn't been answered yet, that is, does the metaverse need to be pass-through? That is to ask those Internet giant companies need to chain reform? It may be easier to solve some practical problems with pass-through, and you need to be able to "play", which is why there are so many multi-universe projects in the blockchain field one after another.

Many media reports say that Axie brought attention to the metaverse and that Gamefi is the best entry point to the metaverse, how do you feel about that?

I think Axie just brings attention to the meta-universe in this area of blockchain, not that Gameifi is necessarily the best entry point to the meta-universe, and this phenomenon may be temporary.

You can see that the promo of Microsoft's Microsoft Team has given enough imagination space for metaverse, and this picture may even become reality in the first half of next year, but after entering the space, more usage scenarios, as well as economic foundation, are needed to pry people's imagination space for metaverse. In general, blockchain technology is an indispensable economic machine for metaverse, but speculation on coins If speculation keeps becoming the theme in this market, the value of this market will also be overdrawn all the time, and it will also cause many difficult legal problems.

At the current stage, we think the chain tour is an application of blockchain out of the circle, Axie is on fire, in fact, we think it is a thing of quite meta-universe, in the world of meta-universe, people can definitely make money through labour in the electronic information world, just like in real life, but at the current stage, Gamefi still stays in the stage of the bubble more than value, so many people can't accept it. But at this stage, Gamefi is still at the stage of bubble overvalue, so many people can't accept it, they think it's unbelievable, they think it's not right, but the development of things can't be done overnight, there will be a stage of gradually removing the bubble to the actual. In this stage, we should evaluate the risks of participating in GameFi and metaverse projects.

When the information age is more developed, people will eventually be freed from manual labour and there will be more opportunities to earn money in the virtual world.

Many of the infrastructures and technologies involved in the metaverse are actually immature. How many years do people expect it will take to get the metaverse industry off the ground? Is it appropriate for ordinary people to get involved now?

I think it will take at least 5 years to really realize the availability of the metaverse scenario because the infrastructure and technology changes still need a big cycle. The 2020 epidemic has advanced the digital development process and accelerated the development process of blockchain and digital currency, but the meta-universe needs too much infrastructure, just like building a city, you can't make a city work by paving roads and buildings alone, the board of the meta-universe needs builders, and it's too early for ordinary people to participate.

If the participation you are talking about is playing the chain tour, then we highly recommend it, because honestly, participating in the chain tour is not a small threshold, in the process of participation, we need to learn too many things, need to understand too many concepts, maybe in the domestic environment is more hype than practical application, but learn how to screen good projects, how to be responsible for your investment, we encourage this kind of learning, because the application of blockchain is really fascinating, whether it is a technical concept or an economic model, seriously drilling and then participating, it will definitely be rewarding.

Website: https://www.tokencamps.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/token_camps

AMA With Tokencamps COO ：2022 cryptocurrency trends

Coinparative — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 09:26:15 +0000

On March 17, we linked up with tokencamps co-founder Keaden for an interview and AMA wher discussed the past year of cryptocurrency and his expectations for the future. Below is a recording and a collection of questions and answers from the interview:

The Blockchain Industry's Biggest Challenges

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While many associate blockchain with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, it has many other uses in supply chain management and preventing identity theft, as well as logistics and the implementation of digital smart contracts. So many technology enthusiasts want to know how to find the top blockchain trends for next year to determine how the technology will further evolve.

How to see the trend of blockchain in 2022

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The best way to look at blockchain trends in 2022 is to start by talking about blockchain forecast statistics. According to a semi-annual global blockchain spending guide published by International Data Corporation, annual global spending on blockchain solutions will reach nearly $11.7 billion by 2022. Businesses are looking for new use cases for blockchain, with applications ranging from healthcare and gaming to identity management.

With over 70 million blockchain wallets currently in use, it is reasonable to expect many other favorable blockchain projections in the future. Most importantly, the global blockchain market will grow at a CAGR of over 69% during the forecast period up to 2025. As one of the most disruptive technologies in 2021, blockchain technology enters 2022 with great anticipation.

What to make of the global government's approach to cryptocurrencies

Another promising area for blockchain growth in 2022 will be the concept of national cryptocurrencies. The concept of national cryptocurrencies is basically related to the central bank digital currency CBDC, which suggests that central banks will create their own coins instead of opting for decentralized ones. Thus the blockchain trend could enable users to conduct financial transactions and manage the custody of their assets. What is interesting is that users do not have to rely on third-party providers and central banks can control the supply in circulation. Central banks can keep the value of their national currency tokens parallel to their traditional currencies. A good example of this blockchain trend in 2022, for example, is Bitcoin which is recognized by the UK government. Even though it is not ready to be launched in 2022, many other countries have already shown aggressive efforts in introducing blockchain-based national currencies.

Using blockchain technology in traditional industries

2021 is the year to battle and recover from the effects of COVID-19. 2022 will be no different, as managing the COVID-19 will remain a top priority. In fact many of the top technology trends for 2022 will be focused on tackling the global pandemic. Interestingly, the blockchain trends for 2022 will highlight their potential use cases in vaccine manufacturing and distribution and tracking.

Concerns about the manufacture and distribution of counterfeit vaccines create complex and enormous problems for managing global pandemics. In this context blockchain can be an ideal tool for verifying the authenticity of vaccine shipments. In addition blockchain can help track the distribution of vaccines to ensure they reach the desired location. another promising highlight of the 2022 blockchain future for manufacturing and distributing COVID vaccines will be the verification of vaccine integrity at different points in the supply chain. For example, blockchain technology could help ensure consistent storage of vaccine batches at the right temperature.

NFT and metaverse will attract more people to the blockchain industry

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Another potential use case for NFT to have a place in the 2022 blockchain forecast is NFT in games. the use of NFT in games is exemplified in popular games such as Axie Infinity. the NFT games allow players to cast their own NFT creatures called Axies and send them into tournaments. Axie Infinity really shows that NFT is more than just digital art.

It is interesting to note that the NFT concept has now found some promising use cases in the music industry. Many famous artists have released their tracks in the form of NFTs. Yet like blockchain NFTs have potential far beyond their initial use cases, and these use cases are attracting attention. Distillers William Grant and Son, for example, sell 46-year-old Glenfiddich whiskeys with NFTs to verify the origin of each bottle.

Then there is the rise of the metaverse. If 2021 witnessed the rise of discussions about the metaverse, then the blockchain trend of 2022 will drive the metaverse itself. For years we have only witnessed the possibilities associated with virtual worlds in science fiction. Yet the concept of a metaverse has become a real phenomenon, with many popular platforms boasting large user bases. the Metaverse is essentially a shared virtual world that offers an immersive experience. Participants can interact with the metaverse through the use of their digital avatars.

One of the important aspects of virtual world design is decentralization, which will enable transparent and seamless access to the virtual world. What better option than blockchain for creating such a decentralized network? In addition to decentralization, the metaverse relies on blockchain capabilities to ensure user governance privileges as well as verifiable provenance. Most importantly the use of blockchain infrastructure also connects the metaverse economy to the larger crypto economy. 2022 blockchain predictions will focus primarily on the potential technical support for the metaverse from large tech companies. The adoption of virtual world games such as The Sandbox and newly developed blockchain projects in virtual worlds will be the highlights of 2022. One can also look for the possibility of virtual world games offering exclusive benefits such as social and investment opportunities.