Are NFT marketplaces becoming an open sea for creator royalties?
Are NFT marketplaces becoming an open sea for creator royalties?
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Welcome back to Chain reaction.
PSA: I’ll be at ETH Denver this week, so if you see me say hello! I will have some Chain Reaction pins on me and the first people who find me will get one. Think of it as a free NFT, but instead of going to your crypto wallet, it will go to your wallet, wallet. Wow!
Anyway, let’s get into the news; Oh, and happy March!
February ended as a big month for the NFT market, as non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain topped $1.5 billion in volume for the first time since May 2022.
The NFT Blur market reached an all-time high in monthly volume at $1.12 billion for February, accounting for 74.6% of total volume across all Ethereum NFT markets, according to data from The Block. (The Block’s data aggregation filters out wash trading – when traders buy and sell items to each other to artificially boost volumes and prices.)
In comparison, OpenSea, now the second-largest Ethereum NFT market, had a volume of $270.11 million for February, according to the data. At its peak, OpenSea had around $4.8 billion in monthly volume in January 2022, but has since seen its overall trading volume deflate.
Amid the recent rebound, Blur beat OpenSea, once the largest NFT marketplace, in monthly volume for the third month in a row as the crypto market debates the issue of NFT creator royalties.
“If you look at what’s happened recently with OpenSea and Blur, obviously that’s a broader concern in terms of the market and fighting royalties,” Yat Siu, president of Animoca Brands, told TechCrunch. . “However, the volume following that has increased dramatically, which means it has brought a different kind of excitement back into space.”
More below.
This week in web3
Ethereum NFT market tops $1 billion in volume for first time since May as creator royalty war heats up (TC+)
As mentioned above, the NFT market is getting hot again, and Blur’s rise in the NFT market has helped reignite a debate over royalties. In previous quarters, OpenSea attempted to balance creator royalties as it held the top spot in NFT markets, but Blur’s aggressive stance is forcing OpenSea to change course. But as huge NFT marketplaces lower fees, it could be a “slippery slope” that hurts creators in the long run, Siu said.
Does Web3 need a bailout now that AI is all the rage? (TC+)
Shifting investor priorities, more expensive cash, and a dearth of large deals that were so common during the last startup boom could leave many terminally ill Web3 businesses cash-strapped. And the clock is ticking. For startups stuck in a bygone category, watching venture capital dollars flow elsewhere can’t be pleasant, even if such shifts in capital flows are normal.
Chainlink’s New Platform Enables Web3 Projects to Connect to Web 2.0 Systems Like AWS and Meta
Chainlink, a Web3 services platform, is launching a serverless self-service platform to help developers connect their decentralized applications (dApps) or smart contracts to any Web 2.0 API, the company said exclusive to TechCrunch. This new platform also supports more widely used programming languages like JavaScript so developers new to Web3 can enter the space. It will also provide integrations with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Meta and others.
The last capsule
For last week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Alex Adelman, the co-founder and CEO of Lolli. Founded in 2018, Lolli is a bitcoin rewards app that lets people earn bitcoin or cashback when they shop online or in person at over 10,000 stores like McDonald’s, Starbucks, Dunkin’, CVS, Costco , etc.
Adelman was previously part of the team that built a commerce gateway, Cosmic, which was acquired by PopSugar in 2015 and then Ebates and Rakuten in 2017. And like Jacquelyn, Adelman also went to UNC-Chapel Hill – go Tar Heels !
Lolli has grown significantly over the past few years, growing from a partnership with less than 1,000 stores to over 10,000 stores to date. Adelman dove into the rewards system of the crypto ecosystem and how it has evolved over the years – and what the future holds for Lolli.
We also delved into the topic of NFTs and Bitcoin Ordinals, which is the latest craze in the community. We discussed whether Bitcoin NFTs are good for the ecosystem, how the technology can grow in the long term, and the possibilities for these digital listings to potentially fit into Lolli’s business model.
To subscribe to Chain reaction on apple podcast,Spotify or your favorite pod platform to follow the latest episodes, and leave us a comment if you like what you hear!
follow the money
- China’s regulatory-compliant blockchain Conflux raises $10 million in a private token sale
- Decentralized Crypto Exchange Mangrove Raised $7.4M in Series A Round
- Singapore-based digital asset exchange DigiFT raised $10.5m in pre-Series A round
- DeFi-focused institutional asset management platform Hashnote has raised $5 million
- Term Labs Raised $2.5M in Funding Round to Create Safer Crypto Lending for Institutions
This list was compiled with information from Messari as well as TechCrunch’s own reports.
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