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Ethernity Chain: 5 NFT collections of sportsmen and film icons

ERN crypto: the 5 most interesting NFTs on Ethernity Chain

On the Ethernity Chain, Web3 is reaching for the stars. Discover the 5 most interesting NFT collections, all purchasable with the crypto ERN!

Ethernity Chain is an NFT marketplace built on Ethereum. It has been talked about quite a lot, mainly due to its NFT collections in collaboration with internationally renowned artists and sportsmen. Among the most famous personalities to whom NFT artworks have been dedicated are Lionel Messi, Bruce Lee and James Dean. The non-fungible tokens that can be purchased on Ethernity Chain come in many different types, from playing cards to digital collectibles to items that can be worn by your avatar in popular metaverses. The NFTs on Ethernity Chain are grouped into thematic categories, which can be easily found through hashtags. There are 22 categories in total, ranging from music and football to art, technology, journalism and martial arts.

On the Ethernity Chain, NFT collections built on different blockchains coexist. In fact, NFTs on the marketplace can be purchased through three cryptocurrencies: ETH, MATIC and with ERN, the platform’s native crypto. The project is gaining fame: thanks to the prestige of the iconic characters, it gives a new impulse to Web3. Let’s see the 5 most interesting NFTs on Ethernity Chain!

1.   The Messiverse, the NFT collection for Lionel Messi

The most famous character you can ‘meet’ while navigating the Etherenity Chain ecosystem is surely the Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi. Messi’s original NFTs were released in August 2021 on the occasion of the player’s transfer from his long-standing club F.C. Barcelona to the French team Paris Saint Germain.

The collection in collaboration with ‘the flea’ consists of four NFTs designed by Australian artist BossLogic, who has worked for Marvel and Disney in the past. The rarest NFT, of which only one copy exists, is titled ‘Lionel Messi: The Golden One’. This digital artwork depicts the Argentinian footballer on top of a meteorite fragment as he is about to kick a completely golden ball.

The NFT was sold at auction with a starting price of $50,000 in the ERN crypto. The auction lasted 72 hours and reached $1 million. ‘Lionel Messi: The Golden One’, however, is not the only NFT collection of the Argentinian player created on Ethernity Chain.

The other collections are ‘Man Of The Past’ and ‘Man From Tomorrow’ which were released at the same time and depict a ‘robot’ Lionel Messi in two versions: one in which the champion wears the Barcelona jersey with the number 10 on his shoulders and one in which the PSG jersey is number 30 (the one he still wears at the French club). The cost for these two NFTs was $10,000 in ERN crypto per piece and 75 NFTs were available per version. The last two collections, ‘The King Piece’ and ‘The Magician’ cost respectively $99 in ETH on the Ethereum network and $50 in WETH on the Polygon network.

2.   ‘Hollywood Icon’ the NFT collection in honour of James Dean

Among the five most interesting NFTs on Ethernity Chain that can be purchased via the ERN crypto are those created in honour of the late actor James Dean. The collection is called ‘Hollywood Icon’ and was created through a collaboration between digital agency Worldwide XR and augmented and virtual reality software company VueXR. There are five of the NFTs in question and they depict iconic objects and moments from the actor’s life. The first NFT to be launched is a 3D reproduction of the metallic silver Porsche TYP 550 Spyder owned by Dean. The Porsche is the most iconic object in the collection mainly because it is the vehicle in which the actor was involved in the fatal accident that led to his death. The Porsche was James Dean’s favourite car and he even found an ironic nickname for it: ‘Little B*stard’.

The other works in the collection that will launch on the 16th of December 2022 are: a 3D bust of the actor with a gold signature, a gold medallion, the star of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the last photograph in which the legendary actor was immortalised.

3.   Bruce Lee, an icon, even in the digital arts

The third NFT collection is dedicated to the actor, director and martial arts expert Bruce Lee. The six NFTs in honour of Bruce Lee were designed by three different artists : Raf Grassetti, one of the most famous digital sculptors in the world, Anthony Francisco, Senior Visual Development Artist at Marvel Studio and the artist we already presented at the beginning of this article: BossLogic.

Each artist interpreted the subject in a highly personal manner. For example Raf Grassetti, in the work “The Dragon”, sculpted the karateka with a Chinese dragon twisted around his body. Anthony Francesco & Ryan Moore placed him within cosmic settings trying to convey to the viewer also the actor’s philosophical wisdom as well as power and strength. The artworks were sold through two types of auctions depending on the quantity of versions produced. Each artist produced a single NFT, a single copy, and a piece with multiple copies. The three single works all started from an auction floor price of $1 and were purchased in the Ethernity Chain crypto ERN.

The other three works, those produced in multiple copies, were sold in ETH at different prices. Raf Grassetti’s artwork, ‘Bruce Lee: Formless’, of which 60 copies were available, was sold at $2,000 apiece, Boss Logic’s 100 copies of the artwork ‘Bruce Lee: Vortex’ were sold at $100 each while Anthony Francisco & Ryan Moore’s NFTs, of which there were 200, were sold at $500 in ETH each.

4.   Wearing Luka Modric’s shirt in The Sandbox

The list of the five most interesting NFT collections on Ethernity continues with another footballer, Luka Modric, the best Croatian footballer of all time. The collection was created by Visual Lab, an animation studio based in the Netherlands. As with the previous collection, there are six NFTs created on Ethernity Chain, of which three are digital artworks and three are wearable objects in the metaverse. All three virtual artworks have the Croatian footballer as their subject, either performing a perfect backhand underwater or dribbling through rubble in a post-apocalyptic scenario.

On the other hand, the three wearable items are two shirts, one of the Croatian national football team and one with the Ethernity logo and the iconic hair band that the Croatian champion can never do without when he takes to the pitch. These items will be wearable in the metaverse of The Sandbox, thanks to the implementation carried out by Ethernity, which has made it possible to bring its licensing library into the virtual world. In addition, the NFT marketplace has acquired some land in The Sandbox metaverse that will house a gallery and an NFT shop.

5.   Shaquille O’Neal and Justin Maller: NBA domination

15-time NBA All-Star Shaquille O’Neal is also among the most interesting NFT projects on the Ethernity chain. The basketball player collaborated with digital artist Justin Maller on the NFT ‘Eras of Dominance’ collection to commemorate his National Basketball Association (NBA) career. The NFT collection consists of five digital artworks depicting Shaquille O’Neal dunking and cheering. Each NFT relates a specific period of the player’s career to the three teams where he made his mark the most: the Los Angeles Lakers, the Orlando Magic and the Miami Heat.

The style of the NFTs, which appear dynamic and disruptive, is reminiscent of Shaq’s style of play. The ‘cracks’ with which the digital artwork is studded can be traced back to the NBA player’s tendency to break the ‘backboards’ of glass baskets due to the vehemence of his dunks. All the most interesting NFTs on Ethernity Chain featured in this article were sold differently. The unique work ‘Shaquille O’Neal: Peak Dominance’ was sold at auction, with a floor price of $20,000 in the crypto ERN.

Is it still possible to buy the 5 most interesting NFTs on the Ethernity Chain, and if so, where can you buy them? All the collections we have listed in this article can be bought either on Ethernity‘s platform or on the popular OpenSea marketplace. If you are wondering instead how much NFTs cost on Ethernity Chain, well, the answer is it depends. Some, like the wearables in the metaverse, are very cheap (even a few dozen dollars), others less so, like the digital artwork ‘Messi: The Golden One’.

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The top 10 marketplaces to buy NFTs

The top 10 NFT marketplaces to buy digital art

Which NFT marketplace should you choose? This list guides you through the top 10 platforms where you can buy non-fungible tokens!

By ‘NFT marketplace’ we mean a platform where you can buy and sell non-fungible tokens. If you have done your research and are ready to buy your first NFT, you can find a list of the top 10 marketplaces here. The marketplaces on this list are secondary resellers of NFTs, i.e. they offer tokens for sale by other users and not directly by the creators. However, in most cases these marketplaces offer tools to create and sell NFTs. 

NFT marketplaces are not all the same. Each one differs from the others, firstly according to the type of blockchain they support. For example, the Tezos blockchain has the reputation of hosting NFTs of the most indie artists on the scene, while on Flow you can find tokens for crypto video games or sports-themed ones. The marketplaces are also differentiated by their target sector (gaming, digital art, PFP…) and the ‘level’ of decentralisation based on the presence of DAOs. Here are the top 10 NFT marketplaces where you can buy digital art (and more)!

1. OpenSea

OpenSea is the first and most popular NFT marketplace in the industry. At the time of writing this article, sales on the platform had a volume of $31.74 billion. OpenSea is the Amazon of NFTs, an e-commerce giant where you can buy many different non-fungible tokens, according to type, style and topic. You can find PFP collections, play-to-earn game items, collectibles and digital art on the platform. There is also a large space on OpenSea for music NFTs and NFT domains. This NFT marketplace is the most widely used and it aims to bring this technology to the general public. Therefore, it aims to be as user-friendly as possible. OpenSea was founded in 2017 by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah, who were fascinated by the success of CryptoKitties and the movement that NFTs have sparked within crypto communities.

In the OpenSea marketplace, there are NFTs built on Arbitrum, Ethereum, Klaytn, Polygon, Optimism and Solana. As a payment method, you can use ETH, WETH and MATIC, APE and SOL. To buy NFTs on OpenSea, you will therefore need a crypto wallet, but in some cases you can also use credit cards (and fiat currencies). When choosing a crypto wallet, make sure it supports NFTs and the blockchain on which you intend to buy them. OpenSea recommends using Metamask for ETH transactions and Phantom wallets for Solana. On OpenSea, tokens can be purchased via the ‘buy now’ function or through auctions or bids. During the purchase process, you may see a higher amount than initially presented, the difference being the gas fees, i.e. the fees for processing the purchase transaction on the blockchain. 

2. X2Y2

In second place among the most used NFT marketplaces is X2Y2, with a volume of USD 849 million. As in the case of OpenSea, X2Y2 is also a platform with a broad NFT offering. You can really find everything there! Purchases on X2Y2 are made with WETH, the ERC-20 token called Wrapped Ether. A WETH is equivalent to an ETH. They are used on this NFT marketplace to “reduce the cost of gas fees and to make the entire purchase process simple, quick and secure”. The X2Y2 marketplace also has an eponymous utility token that is distributed to sellers and buyers for each purchase as well as providing benefits. For instance, by staking X2Y2, you can receive commission discounts on purchases.

3. Magic Eden

Magic Eden is an NFT marketplace on Ethereum and Solana that is also available as an app (android and iOS)! Magic Eden has reached a volume of $1.79 billion and it offers more than 8,000 collections of non-fungible tokens. These include some of the best NFT projects on Solana: y00ts, Critters Cult and DeGods. Magic Eden was founded by four friends with different work experiences in the crypto and DeFi industry: Sidney Zhang, Jack Lu, Zhuoxun Yin and Zhuojie Zhou. For the founders, the name of the NFT marketplace is reminiscent of a garden full of endless possibilities just like the garden of Eden in the bible. Although a wide variety of projects can be found on Magic Eden, one of the main focuses is play-to-earn NFTs. Magic Eden has a community-driven approach and is run by a DAO, MagicDAO, in which the owners of 30,000 NFT Magic Tickets participate.

To buy NFTs on Magic Eden you need a Solana wallet. For those new to the platform the marketplace team suggests the Phantom wallet.

4. LooksRare

LooksRare is an NFT marketplace reminiscent of play-to-earn dynamics. Those who buy, sell and participate in the platform’s activities receive rewards in the form of LOOKS tokens. LOOKS tokens can be used to stake and obtain fee discounts. LooksRare has a volume of USD 1.62 billion and it accepts ETH and WETH for payments.

5. Rarible

With a volume of $299.83 million, Rarible offers NFTs developed on Ethereum, Solana, Tezos, Immutable X, Flow and Polygon. The platform is, to all intents and purposes, a multichain marketplace ; again offering a wide and diverse range of non-fungible tokens. Rarible collaborates with Rarity Sniper, a tool that evaluates and ranks NFT PFPs based on their rarity. This functionality is particularly useful because rarity is one of the main aspects that are considered when people choose to purchase an NFT. How does Rarity Sniper work on Rarible? By taking a single piece, the tool checks “the nature and quantity of the NFT’s traits and automatically compares them to other NFTs in the same collection, calculating its ranking”. On Rarible you can also use “rarity” as a filter in the drop-down menu. This function is currently available for all Ethereum-based PFP collections. On Rarible, just like in a real social network, you can explore the profiles of collectors and all their tokens (in the ‘Users’ section).

Another interesting feature on Rarible is the Multi-Wallet Profile, which allows NFT accounts built on different blockchains to be managed in a single account. The Multi-Wallet Profile supports 20 crypto wallets linked to all blockchains available on Rarible. By purchasing NFTs on Rarible, you receive a share of RARI, the Rarible Protocol governance token that provides different blockchain infrastructures to build NFT projects. The governance of this NFT marketplace is managed by the Rarible Protocol DAO.

6. SuperRare

Continuing down the list of the top 10 NFT marketplaces, we come across SuperRare with a volume of $235, 965 million! If you are an art enthusiast and are wondering which NFT marketplace to choose, SuperRare might be the one for you. SuperRare is built like a real digital art gallery. There are thematic exhibitions and focus on artists of the moment such as FEWOCiOUS, Otherworld with the motto ‘dark art with bright colours’ or DirtyRobot (Daniel Isle) the illustrator who started RENGA NFT. From a technical point of view, SuperRare is a peer-to-peer marketplace on Ethereum and has its own token: RARE. This is called a ‘curation token’ because holders can curate the marketplace’s exhibitions and artistic choices through voting.

On SuperRare, NFTs are bought in Ether and sales commissions are fixed at 3% (for buyers).

7. Objkt

On the Tezos blockchain, we can find Objkt, the NFT marketplace that focuses on sustainability. The non-fungible tokens on Objkt are called ‘Clean NFTs’ because the blockchain on which they are built is very careful about its environmental impact. Objkt has a tight roadmap that seeks to respect the wishes of the community. It proposes initiatives to improve the platform such as ‘separating NFTs into categories between PFPs, art and hot collections’ or ‘accepting offers made only by verified accounts’.

8. KnownOrigin

KnowOrigin also offers a fine selection of digital art. The NFT marketplace is built on Ethereum and has a volume of $7.81 million. More than 1,000 artists and more than 11,000 pieces are displayed on KnowOrigin. The marketplace aims to make it easier for artists to experience the Web3: “KnowOrigin is an artist-driven platform that makes it easy for digital creators to create, display and sell the art they produce. With this in mind, the price of a first sale NFT is distributed 85% to the artist who made it and 15% to the platform (for commissions).  

9. Nifty Gateway

Nifty Gateway’s mission is clear: to make NFTs accessible to everyone, from beginners to experienced collectors. Nifty Gateway is a ‘custodial platform’. This means that NFTs are kept in a wallet secured by Gemini. In practice, if you lose your account credentials, they can easily be recovered by the platform itself. In this sense, the risks are minimal. On Nifty Gateway you can buy NFTs in crypto (ETH) as well as cash for no gas fee: “the custodial nature of Nifty Gateway allows you to operate without having to process a transaction on the blockchain, which means there are no gas fees. This saves our collectors a lot of hassle and money.” Nifty Gateway is also available for mobile devices.

10. ItalyNFT

To conclude the list of the top 10 NFT marketplaces where you can buy digital art, we dedicate some space to a platform ‘made in Italy’. ItaliaNFT is a marketplace where you can buy non-fungible tokens of Italian excellence, including local artists such as Mart Signed and iconic brands such as ‘Giro d’Italia‘. It is precisely the vocation to enhance Italian digital art that distinguishes ItaliaNFT from the arts marketplace. On the platform it is possible to buy works in ETH.

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Young Monday: McDonald’s, work in progress for MiCA and Twitter unfreezes Dogecoin

Paying in Bitcoin and Tether at McDonald's in Lugano

McDonald’s in Lugano accepts payments in Bitcoin, MiCA has been approved by the European Council and Dogecoin is bullish thanks to Twitter and Elon Musk!

This edition of Young Monday for the second week of October 2022 gives us a taste of mass adoption. Would you like to pay in Bitcoin for your Crispy McBacon or a Big Mac? Well, it’s now possible at the Mcdonald’s in Lugano! In other news, the MiCA regulation on crypto-assets markets has been approved by the European Council and Dogecoin has been the star of the week thanks to recent developments concerning the negotiation between Elon Musk and Twitter.

Lugano’s McDonald’s now accepts payments in Bitcoin!

McDonald’s is the latest addition in the list of companies accepting payments in Bitcoin, specifically at its restaurant in Lugano, Switzerland. The announcement took place on Wednesday, the 5th of October 2022. It represents a further step forward in terms of crypto mass adoption for this city located in the Canton of Ticino. The city of Lugano has long shown its affinity with the world of cryptocurrency.

The possibility of paying in Bitcoin with the Tether stablecoin (USDT) is the icing on the cake for the ‘Plan B’ initiative, which was undertaken thanks to the collaboration between the city of Lugano and Tether in early 2022.

The initiative, named after the famous stock-to-flow advocate, has as its main goal the adoption and acceleration of cryptocurrency use in the Swiss city. Paolo Ardoino, CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Tether, said: ‘We have worked together to ensure that the city’s technology infrastructure is able to support cryptocurrency payments.

So what can you buy with Bitcoin in Lugano? Quite a few things actually, including McDonald’s sandwiches and parking passes. The city of Lugano is also planning to launch its own stablecoin called LVGO, through which it will also be possible to pay taxes. Switzerland, and in particular the canton of Ticino, has always been an important centre for Web3 technologies. So much so that it has been nicknamed the ‘Crypto Valley’. On the 28th and 29th of October 2022, the Bitcoin World Forum, a conference on the topic of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, will be held at the Lugano Congress Centre.

MiCA approved by the European Council, now it’s up to the Commission

We continue in harmony with the main topic of the previous paragraph: mass adoption. On Wednesday, the 5th of October 2022, the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the European Council (COREPER) approved MiCA or ‘Markets in Crypto Assets’. A set of rules that will serve to regulate the cryptocurrency market. The main objective of the MiCA regulatory document is to safeguard users and regulate the cryptocurrency market in a more general sense, especially for stablecoins. 

In order to enter into force, the MiCA still has to pass one more step: a review by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament, which should take place today, Monday the 10th of October 2022. Thereafter, the regulation will undergo legal scrutiny and a plenary vote in the European Parliament. The final step, which will precede implementation, is publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. At that point, MiCA will finally enter into force, according to some estimates this should happen by the end of 2024!

Dogecoin becomes bullish thanks to Twitter and Elon Musk

On Tuesday, the 4th of October 2022, Dogecoin experienced a bullish impulse, which lasted only a few hours and enabled it to close the day with +8%. But why did Dogecoin’s price rise so suddenly in the middle of the bear market? Once again, the answer has to do with Elon Musk‘s recent statements on negotiations for the takeover of the social network Twitter. Just last Tuesday, Elon Musk renewed his offer of $54.20 per share to Twitter, which he had already proposed a few months ago.

Within minutes of the news release, Elon Musk’s favourite crypto drew a green candle of +8.1% on the price chart. The relationship between the most famous memecoin of all time and Tesla’s owner has been going on for many years, and the Tycoon’s more or less regular tweets now mark both bearish market phases and bull markets. Precisely on the topic of Twitter, Elon Musk had exposed his thoughts some time ago by proposing a very curious and probably ironic solution to limit the presence of bots and fake accounts on the social network: “Pay a very small sum in Dogecoin for each interaction with Twitter”.

Barring another change of plans, which is not too unlikely given the eccentricity of the tycoon, Musk nevertheless seems intent on acquiring the social network. In a tweet dating from the 5th of October 2022, he stated that he wants to build ‘the ultimate application’ that should be sufficient on its own to satisfy all users’ social needs. Should the deal go through, this application will be created out of Twitter. Who knows what role Dogecoin will play in Elon Musk’s revolutionary application, which as of today is called ‘X’.Let’s stay in the social media space for our bonus news of this edition of Young Monday. Kim Kardashian was accused of exploiting her popularity on Instagram to misleadingly promote an ERC-20 token called Ethereum Max (EMAX), built on the Ethereum blockchain. The token, launched in June 2021 turned out to be a Pump&Dump, a type of scam in which the price of a crypto or token is aggressively promoted in order to artificially inflate the price. Kim Kardashian was found guilty and will have to pay a fine of USD 1.26 million.

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Stablecoins arrive on the Bitcoin blockchain thanks to Taro

Bitcoin: stablecoins are coming with Taro. What is it for?

Stablecoins are arriving on Bitcoin thanks to the Taro protocol. What is it and how does it improve BTC’s blockchain?

Would you like to be able to take advantage of the security of the Bitcoin network to make and receive stablecoin payments? You will soon be able to do so, thanks to Taro! The 28th of September 2022 saw the release of the alpha version of Taro Daemon, an open source project developed by Lightning Labs that will allow digital assets to be created on the Bitcoin blockchain. What is Taro? An acronym for “Taproot Asset Representation Overlay”, Taro is a protocol built using Taproot, the most recent Bitcoin update, activated on the 14th of November 2021. The latest news about Bitcoin? Stablecoins are coming!

The problem to be solved: paying in Bitcoin must be cheap and fast

Bitcoin was created to enable peer-to-peer value exchanges in a fully decentralised system. The title of Bitcoin’s whitepaper is, ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’, i.e. a system with which to conduct transactions in a completely decentralised manner. With time, however, the so-called ‘digital gold’ has been less and less used as a trading currency and people have started to consider it a store of value. The reason for this lies in the intrinsic characteristics of the first cryptocurrency in history: Bitcoin’s core network is not very scalable.

When we talk about scalability within the Web3 world, we refer to increasing the speed of transactions and decreasing their cost. The more scalable a network is, the faster and cheaper transactions can be processed. In its early years, Bitcoin’s blockchain was quite scalable due to its low network congestion that did not slow down exchanges. This situation changed over time, and Bitcoin’s network became less and less efficient in these terms. This was due to the incredible popularity it has enjoyed in recent years, hence the increasing number of transactions to be handled and the resulting congestion of the network.

As is shown by the scalability trilemma, one of the most famous theorems for blockchain technologies, it is not possible for a network to be fully scalable, secure and decentralised at the same time. Each blockchain is driven to find a compromise to achieve all these qualities without sacrificing one specifically. Despite being a benchmark for security and decentralisation, Bitcoin has some weaknesses in guaranteeing the scalability of its network. However, the world of Web3 is constantly evolving: ecosystems and developers are always ready to offer innovative solutions. One of these is the Lightning Network, a Layer 2 of Bitcoin founded in 2016, which relies on the main blockchain and improves it in terms of scalability. The Lightning Network is able to process millions of transactions extremely cheaply, as opposed to Bitcoin’s main network, which only reaches a maximum of 7 transactions per second. In short, the Bitcoin Lightning Network groups a series of transactions into ‘packets’ that are then recorded on the Bitcoin network  instead of processing each transaction one by one. For these reasons, using the Lightning Network has become advantageous for paying in Bitcoin. So far, nothing new! Lightning Labs has a new protocol in store to further improve the transfer of value on the BTC blockchain. Let’s talk about Taro!

What is Taro and what is it used for?

Despite the great innovation given by the Bitcoin Lightning Network, the issue of volatility remains to be solved. Indeed, the price of BTC does not remain stable over time but is subject to market fluctuations. This could create some headaches both for users who want to pay in Bitcoin and for companies that might use them for their employees’ salaries in the future. Or for shops that accept cryptocurrency payments. Taro comes into play to solve this problem. But what is Taro? It is an open source protocol built by Lightning Labs that will enable the creation and use of digital assets, specifically stablecoins, on the Bitcoin blockchain. These digital assets will be either fungible tokens, the equivalent of what ERC-20s are for Ethereum, or non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

But how will Taro be able to create assets on Bitcoin’s blockchain? The creation and exchange of assets will be possible thanks to the Taproot upgrade, activated in 2021, and the data structure called Merkle Trees. Merkle Trees are a type of data structure that can store a lot of information and therefore easily prove their existence and veracity.

Today, digital assets such as tokens only reside on other blockchains due to easier implementation, lower transaction costs or greater scalability. Taro aims to change the current status quo. Taro’s ultimate goal is to transform Bitcoin into a multi-asset network. These assets will be able to be transferred on the Bitcoin network through on-chain transactions. Furthermore, tokens built through Taro will be able to be transferred instantly, at low cost, onto the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Is this an early preview of Bitcoin’s opening up  to DeFi? It is expected that most of these tokens will be transferred to the Lightning Network, especially the stablecoins to which Taro attaches the greatest importance. This is also evident from their communication on social networks.

The slogan that appeared on Taro’s Twitter profile is ‘bitcoinising the dollar’. In other words? Let’s bring the practicality of fiat currencies to the Bitcoin blockchain! This mission could help make the fundamental point of Bitcoin’s white paper come true: to allow exchanges of value without intermediaries in a fully decentralised system. With the activation of the Taro protocol, users will be able to hold both stablecoins, cryptocurrencies pegged to the dollar, and BTC on their wallets as well as being able to use both to make payments. The Lightning Labs team has not yet announced when the Taro update will be activated, but the entire Web3 world is buzzing. Who knows if one day Taro will also allow the creation of DeFi ecosystems or play-to-earn games on the most famous and long-lived blockchain ever.

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Star Atlas preview, the play-to-earn available on Epic Games

Epic Games’ Star Atlas, try the new play-to-earn on Solana

Star Atlas on Epic Games, the play-to-earn on Solana’s blockchain, will soon be available for preview testing!

Big news for fans of the world of Web3 video games! The wait is over: Star Atlas, the next-generation play-to-earn video game based on Solana‘s blockchain, has finally opened the doors of its universe. The game is currently in the Pre-Alpha phase and therefore not yet in its final version. It will soon be available on the Epic Games platform.

The Star Atlas roadmap is going as planned: just recently in July, the developers of the play-to-earn video game announced the launch of the official Star Atlas DAO, laying the foundation for the creation of shared governance. Its DAO was recently implemented with a staking function called Star Atlas Locket: by staking Star Atlas, you can receive POLIS tokens in return.

Try the demo version of Star Atlas on Epic Games

The news of the arrival of Star Atlas on Epic Games was made public during the second edition of the 426Live conference: the event organised by the developers of Star Atlas on the Twitch platform, held on the 29th of September 2022.

Users can finally get their hands on the first demo version of the video game, called Pre-Alpha Showroom. The prototype can be downloaded exclusively on the Epic Store Games marketplace, a company specialising in the development of software and video games (including, for example, Fortnite). 

To access it, you will need to download the demo and connect your wallet to the platform. As it is not yet a final version, users will be able to download it for free.

In the downloadable demo version, players will experience the world of Star Atlas in the guise of Asha, commander of the ‘Council of Peace Forces’ and flight instructor of the Academy: the institution responsible for training the galaxy’s most promising youngsters.

In order to create the most realistic and immersive game environment possible, the Pre-Alpha demo version will combine various technologies offered by its development engine: Unreal Engine 5. Specifically, the prototype will make use of Nanite systems for the realisation of hyper-realistic, cinematic-style graphics, and Lumen systems to provide the game environment with real-time lighting (thus representing light effects in a natural way). For the physical support of the game, on the other hand, Chaos and Niagara were used.

The Star Atlas roadmap, however, has not yet come to an end: until December 2022, Showroom will add new features to the gaming experience, such as the possibility of playing other characters besides Asha.

Star Atlas CORE: the graphic novel about the video game universe

Star Atlas is not just a play-to-earn video game. During the 426Live conference, the Star Atlas CORE project was presented. It is a graphic novel that introduces the community to the history of Star Atlas, its main characters and their customs and traditions.

At the moment, all that is known is that Star Atlas CORE will be divided into 18 episodes and will follow the adventures of Gyun, the protagonist of the series, and his crew.

The realisation of the initiative was entrusted to Tim McBurnie, graphic designer and artist of ATMTA, the main developer of the Star Atlas project.

The releases will follow the developments and storyline of the main game and will be published on both the official Star Atlas CORE website and the Showroom.

The graphic novel episodes will also be available as NFTs, Non-fungible Tokens, and available for purchase on the Magic Eden and Star Atlas Galactic Marketplace, introduced in the latest platform update.

The integration of blockchain technology with the world of storytelling is certainly not new.

Jenkins the Valet is a project involving the creation of a collective storyline based on the adventures of Jenkins, an avatar from NFT’s famous Bored Ape Yacht Club collection. 

Another initiative that sees the active participation of the community in the storytelling is RENGA NFT, a collection launched by artist DirtyRobot that topped the sales charts in various marketplaces in September.

The release date for Star Atlas has not yet been disclosed, we will just have to wait for further updates!

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The NFT market in September: charts, record sales and trending collections

Latest news from the NFT market: RENGA, CryptoPunks, Solana

What happened to the NFT market in September 2022? The latest news, record sales for CryptoPunks, Solana and emerging collections across the industry!

To all those in ‘wake me up when bear market ends’ mode, you should sleep for a little while longer. The market continues to be bearish and the non-fungible token sector has slowed down too, but it’s not really hibernating! In this article you will find an overview of the NFT market of September 2022. We present data on sales volumes, emerging NFT collections and projects that have exploded (small spoiler: CryptoPunks and NFTs on Solana).

NFT market: volume declines but not the number of sales

An overview of the NFT market in September shows us that the volume of total NFT sales has dropped a lot since the beginning of the year: from 235.24 billion USD on the 30th of January 2022 to 67.93 billion USD on the 30th of September 2022. In short, sales have fallen in terms of volume, especially compared to the best periods for non-fungible tokens we have seen this year (February and May). On the other hand, the NFT market’s figures show growth in the number of new collections created: from 39.25 thousand in January to 176.21 thousand in September. The number of daily NFT sales on the 30th of September was 22.89 million (data from IntoTheBlock and Dune Analytics). These days, the NFT market is reacting to the activation of non-fungible tokens on Instagram. For US users, it will finally be possible to link wallets and share NFTs in their profiles, next to the symbol of photos, reels and tagged photos. The NFT section is recognisable by the hexagon symbol that has appeared. Will the reaction be positive?

Record sales in September: CryptoPunks and Solana

What is happening to the NFT market during this bear market? Albeit with low volumes, non-fungible tokens continue to be bought without dramatic collapses. On the contrary, some NFTs have seen record sales, such as the case of CryptoPunks #2924 which sold for 3,300 ETH (around $4.5 million) on the 28th of September 2022. This sale ranked 24th in terms of the most expensive NFTs ever, and 4th highest for sales of the CryptoPunks collection. This example of CryptoPunks is one of the rarest and most valuable in the entire collection, as it is an ‘ape’ character (i.e. a CryptoPunks with the appearance of a monkey) of which only 24 examples exist. Other notable NFT (single) sales this month are:

●     CryptoPunks #5944 for $1.28 million;

●     Bored Ape Yacht Club #8585 for $1.02 million;

●     Bowie by FEWOCiOUS (from the ‘Bowie on the Blockchain‘ collection) for $127,460.

As far as collections and entire NFT projects are concerned, this is the top performance ranking for the month of September 2022:

  1. Ethereum Name Service: blockchain domain service records $34.18 million in sales;
  2. Bored Ape Yacht Club: 27.96 million (down from the previous month);
  3. CryptoPunks: $22.3 million;
  4. RENGA NFT: the emerging collection on Ethereum sold its works for $19.77 million;
  5. Mutant Ape Yacht Club: BAYC’s sister collection closed the month with sales worth $17.45 million.

Although the ranking is dominated by ‘blue chip’ NFT collections, more recent collections such as y00ts on Solana, Azuki on Ethereum, Otherside’s LAND, and the Bored Ape metaverse also achieved good positions. Special mention must be made of the growth of NFTs from play-to-earn games on the Immutable X chain and the NFT passes from Tyler Hobbs‘ QQL project, all 900 of which were sold in half an hour for $17 million. An experiment in generative art that allows one pass to mine a unique and customised NFT.

According to this data (provided by DappRadar), the top blockchains for the NFT sector in the month of September were Ethereum and Solana. Sales on Solana rose 77 per cent over the previous month. As far as the sales ranking by NFT marketplace is concerned, in first place there’s OpenSea ($350 million in monthly sales), in second place Magic Eden on Solana ($128.22 million) and finally X2Y2 on Ethereum ($67.62 million).

Which NFTs explode in September?

Among the up-and-coming NFT collections is RENGA, the project of cartoonist DirtyRobot which, as we have seen, achieved excellent sales results in September. RENGA’s most expensive NFT was No. 26, which sold for 20 ETH ($26,000). This month also saw the “birth” of RENGA’s first NFT whale, which has 80 pieces in the collection worth around $235,000 (calculated on a floor price basis).

Also noteworthy is Critters Cult, a collection of NFT pixel art on Solana influenced by 80s and 90s aesthetics. Critters Cult was launched on 25 September and has since recorded sales of nearly $3 million. The collection consists of 4,444 PFPs representing animals and protagonists from the Critters Cult universe, populated by bizarre and mysterious events and featuring atmospheres worthy of Stephen King, David Lynch and Steven Spielberg.

NFT collections coming soon: A.C. Milan and Hugo Boss

On the 6th of October 2022, through an auction on the Magic Eden marketplace, a special edition of the MonkeyLeague collection dedicated to A.C. Milan players will be sold. MonkeyLeague is a play-to-earn game on Solana that can be classified as a sports-themed strategy video game in which you build a MonkeyPlayer team. The aim of the game is to train your team and win challenges and tournaments to obtain the MSB token as a reward. At the auction on the 6th of October, 16 NFTs inspired by the AC Milan team of the 1993/94 and 1995/96 seasons will be auctioned off.

‘Embrace Your Emotion’ is the title of Hugo Boss’ new NFT collection. The brand’s first experiment in the industry dates back to 2021, when a digital clothing collection inspired by American baseball was released. On the 4th October 2022, Hugo Boss announced its rebranding plan towards digital with a ‘holistic, 360° experience in the Metaverse‘. Concretely, Hugo Boss has created digital artworks together with Imaginary Ones NFT, a project of 8,888 colourful animated characters created on Ethereum. Embrace Your Emotion will go on sale in early November and will consist of 1,001 3D NFTs in video format. Aesthetically, the non-fungible tokens will represent human emotions with different shades and more or less rare characteristics. Owners of these will also get benefits such as discounts in Hugo Boss shops, merchandise and other digital experiences.

The proceeds from the sales of Hugo Boss’ NFT collection will be donated to the Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM) association. The press release states that ‘the aim of the collection is to encourage everyone to get in touch with their emotions and share the message that all feelings, positive and negative, are valid and should be embraced, as the freedom to feel and express can significantly improve mental health and overall well-being’.

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The 3 main Ethereum hard forks: ETC, ETHW and ETHF

Ethereum 2.0: the 3 main forks after The Merge: ETHW, ETC, ETF

Ethereum Classic, Ethereum Proof-of-Work and Ethereum Fair. Everything you didn’t know about the 3 main Ethereum hard forks after The Merge!

On the 25th of September 2022, The Merge update that changed the consensus mechanism of the Ethereum blockchain was successfully activated. The Ethereum network went from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake without a hitch. For users,The Merge did not bring significant changes, but the same wasn’t true for miners. In the previous version of the blockchain, miners were in charge of validating transactions and consequently blocks on the blockchain, thus earning ETH rewards for each validated block. Therefore, many of them had to move to other blockchains out of necessity ; some of them already existed, others were specially created as hard forks of the main Ethereum blockchain. A hard fork, in cryptocurrency jargon, is when a project is updated in such a way that it is incompatible with the previous version, giving rise to something new. Let’s learn about the 3 main hard forks after The Merge: ETHW, ETC and ETHF.

The most classic of hard forks, Ethereum Classic

Ethereum Classic is perhaps the most famous hard fork in crypto history. ETC was born as a result of a hack on Ethereum’s DAO in July 2016. The hack targeted was an early form of a DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation), a type of organisation that is very popular nowadays in the Web3 world. It allows users who own the crypto of an ecosystem to actively participate in the initiatives and politics of a project.

Ethereum’s The DAO was supposed to be a kind of Venture Capital, with the aim of financing projects within Web3, based on users’ Ether votes from the community. In the days immediately following its launch, the DAO managed to raise $150 million in ETH from more than 11,000 different users. However, in July 2016, one or more hackers breached The DAO’s smart contract. They managed to steal 3.6 million Ethereum, about 14% of the total supply at that time. Following this breach of the Ethereum blockchain, the community was called upon to take a vote on the future of the network. The solution that most people agreed on was the creation of a hard fork.

The main Ethereum blockchain became the Ethereum Classic blockchain, while the new fork that came about as a result of the hard fork became the Ethereum network we all know. But what does Ethereum Classic have to do with The Merge update? ETC is the best-known hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain and has been active since 2016. Although it has been the victim of a few attacks in the past, it continues to resist and process transactions without any particular problems. Precisely for this reason, a large number of miners, left ‘unemployed’ after The Merge, decided to use their computational power to validate ETC transactions instead.

The hashrate of the Ethereum Classic blockchain went from about 50 trillion hash functions per second (Th/s) to about 150 trillion today. It peaked on the day of The Merge, with a hash rate of 300 Th/s. The term indicates the total performance of the network, specifically the amount of hashing functions executed in one second. The increase in hashing functions that occurred simultaneously with the activation of The Merge update shows the amount of miners that migrated from Ethereum to Ethereum Classic.

The resilience of miners, Ethereum Proof-of-Work is born

ETHW was the main Ethereum hard fork after The Merge. Some Ethereum miners decided to copy Ethereum’s Proof-of-Work blockchain and thus create ETHW. The ETHW crypto was distributed to all those who owned Ethereum on both decentralised wallets and exchanges via a snapshot. The latter makes it possible to see the amount of crypto and the addresses that owned that amount at a given time.

Despite the great popularity of this crypto in the days immediately preceding The Merge, the launch was not the best. ETHW’s network suffered various problems allegedly caused by a hack that now seems to have been resolved. In the hours immediately following the launch, ETHW was subject to very high volatility. In fact, it peaked at $50 and then fell back to around $10 in the following hours.

The future direction of ETHW is still uncertain. The project’s white paper, a document in which the main information of a blockchain protocol and goals for the future are usually found, as of today consists of ten pages. The first five pages are devoted exclusively to the title of the whitepaper ‘The Original Ethereum Blockchain powered by Proof of Work’ in English and Chinese, the remaining five have the words ‘these pages have been left intentionally blank’. So the whitepaper is not very constructive. We will see whether ETHW plans to design something for the future or whether it will remain only the ‘second home’ of the now former Ethereum miners.

Ethereum’s third hard fork after The Merge: Ethereum Fair

The third Ethereum hard fork after The Merge is Ethereum Fair, which was created on the 15th of September 2022. The ETHF crypto, at first named ETF, was however not distributed to Ether holders, but to those who owned Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Ethereum Classic. ETHF, however, does not seem to have won over the miners, and the market in general. The crypto was launched at a starting price of about $15 and in a fortnight has lost more than 70 per cent of its value.

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Polkadot’s new roadmap explained in 5 points

Polkadot: 5 new features coming in 2022

On the 26th of September, Polkadot released its roadmap for the last quarter of 2022. Check out Gavin Wood’s 5 new features for the blockchain!

On Monday the 26th of September Polkadot, and its development company, Parity Technology, released a document outlining all the most important features the network is working on for the last quarter of 2022. The updates planned by Polkadot are mainly related to scalability, parachain development, governance and staking. Let’s take a look at 5 new features for Polkadot coming in 2022 and all the improvements planned for the network!

1.   Polkadot is becoming increasingly scalable

The first of five features coming to Polkadot in 2022 is called Asynchronous Backing and will be implemented to increase the scalability of the Polkadot network. Scalability is the ability of a network to process transactions quickly; the more scalable a blockchain is, the more transactions it can process in a given period of time. Thanks to the Asynchronous Backing functionality, the time per block on each parachain is expected to be reduced from 12 seconds to around 6 seconds. This will ensure that networks process transactions faster and with less latency: the time between when a transaction is sent and when it is actually processed.

Asynchronous Backing will make it possible to double the space available on each block, and to ‘reuse’ blocks when they are not validated on the first attempt. This upgrade is intended to increase the amount of work each parachain can do and to optimise the performance of the Relay Chain: the infrastructure on which all parachains are built. It will therefore be possible to register more parachains. Moreover, the TPS (transactions per second) capacity of the Polkadot network, i.e. that of all its parachains and parathreads, should increase significantly, to between 100,000 and 1 million.

2.   Parathreads: launch and enhancements

The second novelty for the Polkadot ecosystem concerns parathreads. Parathreads are parachains which are not permanently integrated on Polkadot due to winning one of the auctions, but who pay for the use of Polkadot’s infrastructure ‘on a consumption basis’. As opposed to parachains, parathreads can also be built by non-professional programmers since, in terms of code complexity, they can be compared to simple smart contracts. Both Polkadot parachains and parathreads do not have their own consensus algorithm, but make use of the Proof-of-Stake Relay Chain algorithm. The launch of parathreads was planned for this summer, but it has been postponed to early 2023. Regarding parathreads, Parity Technology is exploring a solution called Next-Generation Scheduling. This technology allows Polkadot parachains that have won auctions (and have thus been awarded the opportunity to participate in the network and in parathreads) to increase the amount of space on their blocks in order to save on the costs resulting from the consensus mechanism.

3.   Restructured governance

The third point in Polkadot’s roadmap for the last quarter of 2022 concerns governance. By governance within Web3, we mean the way in which community members can participate in decisions about the future moves of the project. The new system, called Overhaul, will eliminate the board and technical committees and introduce the Polkadot Fellowship. The Polkadot Fellowship has the Polkadot Fellowship Manifesto as its ‘constitution’.

The term fellowship, which is usually used to refer to a company of friends, was not attributed to Polkadot’s new governance system by chance. The system in fact aims to change the decision-making process by making it as similar as possible to what normally takes place in a group of friends. Polkadot’s new governance aims to decentralise the old system consisting of three chambers and a 13-member board elected by DOT holders. With the changes, all members of the community will have a say through periodic referendums and a proxy system that will speed up the decision-making process. Governance V2 is expected to be implemented on Kusama, the blockchain parallel to Polkadot that is being used to test the new features, at the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2022.

4.   The New Staking Dashboard

The fourth new feature for the Polkadot ecosystem concerns staking. Since Polkadot is a blockchain that works thanks to the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, staking is available and indispensable in order to guarantee the security of transactions. The challenge for the end of 2022 for Gavin Wood‘s blockchain is to make staking more accessible and easier for users who want to participate in the network’s consensus mechanism or obtain rewards. To this end, Parity Technologies has developed a Staking Dashboard, a platform for staking Polkadot’s crypto, DOT. The main focus of Parity Technologies’ development is to make the dashboard user-friendly and to lighten the infrastructure. In fact, staking on Polkadot works without a centralised external provider thanks to light-client technology. The latter allows validators to interact with a blockchain without having to store the entire network history, all the while maintaining the same level of security. The beta version of Polkadot’s dashboard for staking is already usable and the final version should be released soon!

 

5.   Parachain enhancement

Polkadot’s future in the coming months will obviously also involve parachains. Parachains are Polkadot’s core functionality and the reason why blockchain has gained so much popularity. They are the secondary blockchains that exploit Polkadot’s infrastructure. Their performance will be improved through a new mechanism called Weights V2. Weights V2 will make it easier to validate parachain blocks and consequently make it easier to ‘write’ and develop them. The update is the first in chronological order that will be implemented and is expected to arrive by mid-October 2022.

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Bitcoin ETFs and Bitcoin ETPs, what’s the difference? 

Bitcoin ETFs and ETPs: what are they and how are they different?

Bitcoin ETFs and ETPs are becoming increasingly popular. But what are these financial instruments in short? What are their differences?

Before we look at what a Bitcoin ETF is and the difference with an ETP, let’s understand what a classic ETF or Exchange Traded Fund is. In short, it’s a financial product that closely replicates the performance of an index (called a benchmark); they are ‘packages’ containing stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate securities or derivative contracts of these instruments, in order to replicate their performance. ETFs are sold and bought like ordinary securities and are therefore considered more accessible and less expensive financial instruments than classic investment funds. Like all instruments listed on financial markets, their price can go down as well as up. In short, they can be considered as baskets of securities of different companies or entities that refer to a common ‘theme’, which can be the market of a geographical area or a sector. 

What is a Bitcoin ETF

According to this definition of ETFs, Bitcoin’s Exchange Traded Funds replicate the performance of BTC and assets related to Satoshi Nakamoto‘s crypto. In essence, they allow exposure to BTC without actually buying any cryptocurrency, which is why in most cases they appeal to those not used to dealing with cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets and private keys. 

On 8 June 2022, the first Bitcoin ETF was listed on the Italian stock exchange. While the first one ever, made by ProShares, was approved in 2021 by the SEC in the US. The launch in the US was quite successful for both retail and institutional investors.

At the moment, all Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds are based on futures, i.e. forward contracts that allocate a certain amount of the underlying asset, based on a predetermined delivery price and maturity, to the two parties that subscribe to them. In this system, one of the parties ‘bets’ on the price going up and the other on the price going down.

Are there any spot Bitcoin ETFs?

Spot Bitcoin ETFs are traded for immediate delivery: the order to buy or sell is immediately followed by the actual exchange of the asset for cash (as fiat currency). This kind of fund has not yet been put on the market, currently the company Grayscale is carrying out negotiations with the SEC to approve one, converting a mutual fund it already manages. Spot Exchange Traded Funds are more difficult to set up, and in order to issue them one has to meet a number of technical and regulatory requirements, especially with regard to the underlying asset, which in this case is the entire Bitcoin spot market. Any company issuing an ETF on the spot market will in fact have to own the bitcoins directly and hold them securely. In addition, it must be demonstrated to regulators that Exchange Traded Funds do not give rise to price manipulation in the relevant market.

Advantages and disadvantages of a Bitcoin ETF

As anticipated, the main advantage of these funds is that they allow anyone to enter the cryptocurrency market in a ‘traditional’ manner. In fact, they are easy for those who already operate with financial intermediaries. ETFs of this type are regulated instruments and therefore instil confidence in institutional investors (and retailers) and are used to diversify their investments. 

As for the disadvantages, due to management costs, buying them is less convenient than buying BTC directly on exchanges. Moreover, derivative-based ones do not reflect price changes instantaneously, so they may not accurately track market trends. You should also consider that exchange-traded funds are indirectly managed, which means that you do not have direct control over your money. This is why they are considered by many in the industry as a method used by central banks and classical finance to somehow influence the evolution and development of a currency that was designed and created to be totally decentralised.

The difference between ETFs and ETPs

Have you also heard of ETPs? Exchange traded products are a macro-category that brings together a number of financial products that replicate stock indices or other assets by following their performance in the reference market. ETFs are thus a subset of ETPs, along with ETNs (Exchange Traded Notes) and ETCs (Exchange Traded Commodities). In a nutshell, ETNs and ETCs are not funds but debt notes, since by purchasing them one is in fact providing credit to a company. Furthermore, ETCs specifically track the price of physical commodities such as gold, silver, oil, sugar, or commodity derivatives. ETNs, on the other hand, reflect the performance of all other types of financial instruments. 

A new Bitcoin ETP on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange 

On 23 September 2022, a new Bitcoin-themed Exchange Traded Product was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The ETP, which by definition consists of ETFs and ETNs, is issued by Valour, a company that offers financial products related to the Web3 sector, and is called ‘Bitcoin Carbon Neutral’. What is the special feature of this ETP? When you buy Valour’s BTC Carbon Neutral ETP, all carbon dioxide emissions related to the product will be automatically offset. These emissions include, for example, those due to mining consumption. 

Concretely, the carbon-free plan will be implemented in cooperation with Patch, a platform offering solutions for companies that want to play their part in combating climate change. Patch at this juncture will select projects that prevent emissions and remove carbon dioxide related to BTC from the atmosphere. Valour also offers ETPs on Uniswap (UNI), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) and many other crypto projects. 

Another recently launched BTC-themed product is the 21 Shares Bitcoin ETP listed on July 2022. 

Bitcoin ETFs and ETPs are thus proving to be increasingly popular financial instruments, chosen by those who want to approach cryptocurrencies in a gradual way. 

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Young Monday: Apple and NFTs, Christie’s, the play-to-earn game about Muhammad Ali

Buying NFTs with Apple and Christie's, a play-to-earn game about Muhammad Ali

Apple will allow NFT purchases on its app store, Christie’s has a new NFT marketplace and a Muhammad Ali-inspired play-to-earn boxing game launches

The first Young Monday of October has good news in store, especially in the world of non-fungible tokens. Apple will enable NFT purchases via its app store. Christie’s, the world’s most famous auction house, launches its own NFT marketplace. On the 1st of October 2022, the occasion of the anniversary of the historic Thrilla fight in Manila, the NFT drop of the boxing-themed play-to-earn game ‘Muhammed Ali – The Next Legends’ took place. The news for this week doesn’t end there though. Mastercard has announced that it will be possible to personalise payment cards with their own NFTs from ‘blue chip’ collections: the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Moonbirds and CryptoPunks. Speaking of CryptoPunks, on the 28th of September 2022, CryptoPunks number 2924 was sold for a record 3,300 ETH, approximately $4.5 million! This is the fourth largest sale ever for CryptoPunks, what a record!

 

NFTs will soon be available for purchase in the Apple Store

Apple recently announced that it will allow NFTs to be bought and sold through its app store. However, the company has not yet fully explained the details of how this will come to be. Apple’s initiative is aimed at apps and games in the app store, in particular those that intend to sell game components in the form of NFTs. The debate surrounding this news has mainly focused on the commission that Apple plans to charge on the purchase of each NFT. It is expected to be around 30 per cent, the same percentage that is still applied today for components of traditional mobile games that can be purchased through Apple’s app store. Apple has been criticised on social networks, especially in crypto Twitter echo-chambers, for charging such high fees on the sale and purchase of NFTs. However, there have also been positive opinions for this: according to them the Cupertino based tech giant’s initiative would be an important building block for mass adoption.

Christie’s 3.0, the world’s most famous auction house is now a step further to embracing Web3

Christie’s, the world’s most famous auction house, recently launched its NFT marketplace on Ethereum. Christie’s 3.0. Among the works of art that have passed through the London auction house is the highest-price auctioned work ever: the painting ‘Salvator Mundi’ by Leonardo Da Vinci. It was bought by the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism for 450 million dollars. However, Christie’s venture into the world of Web3 had already begun some time ago. They hosted the auction of digital artist Beeple’s artwork ‘Everydays: The First 5,000 Days’, which sold for $69.3 million in March 2021. The recent Christie’s 3.0 initiative represents a further technological step forward for the auction house. But how can you buy NFTs on Christie’s 3.0? It is a real NFT marketplace, but sales will only be possible via auctions. The platform is built on the Ethereum blockchain, and to date it is not yet clear whether a secondary marketplace will be available on this platform in the future or whether those who want to sell digital works of art purchased on Christie’s 3.0 will have to rely on external NFT marketplaces.

Christie’s 3.0 was created in collaboration with two well-known companies in the world of Web3. One is Manifold, a startup that develops smart contracts. The other is Chainalysis, a Web3 company that produces software for the analysis of on-chain data with a particular focus on security. Christie’s 3.0 made its debut on the 28th of September 2022 with the PHASES collection: a collection of photo and video artworks by New York-based digital artist Diana Sinclair who is listed by Forbes as one of the 50 most influential people in the world of NFTs. Auctions for PHASES artworks will be available until the 11th of October 2022, and the starting price for the pieces is 4 ETH (approx. $5,300) for static digital artworks, and 5 ETH (approx. $6,660) for NFT videos.

 

Muhammad Ali – The Next Legends, the play-to-earn game about boxing

The 1st of October 2022 saw the launch of the Muhammad Ali – The Next Legends Pro Pack, the first NFTs of the blockchain-based game created in honour of Muhammad Ali. The NFTs cost 0.11 ETH, about $150, and are now available for purchase on OpenSea for a minimum price of 0.11 ETH. The 1st of October is no ordinary day: on this exact day in 1975, the bout nicknamed ‘Thrilla in Manila’ took place. This fight was the third and final bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Fraizer, which took place in Quezon City in the metropolitan area of Manila (capital of the Philippines). It is considered one of the most important fights in boxing history.

The upcoming play-to-earn game, Muhammad Ali – The Next Legends will use NFT and artificial intelligence based technologies. The play-to-earn is being produced by the start-up Non-Fungible Labs in collaboration with the leading artificial intelligence company for the Web3, Altered State Machine. To play The Next Legends you have to match two NFTs: an ASM Brain, the ‘boxer’s brain’ which is an NFT equipped with artificial intelligence that allows it to evolve, and a boxer NFT. Then by using ‘Artificial Intelligence Gyms’, users will be able to train their ‘brains’ by acquiring the boxing skills necessary to defeat opponents. Acquirable skills will be agility, stamina, stance, sparring, jabs, hooks and uppercuts. The goal of the game will be to train one’s boxer and win fights against other players to become The Next Legend!