September has brought a nice upward trend to the crypto market, and the crypto community has become more active on social media. In terms of events, the past week was busy – despite the months-long price drop, there is a lot of innovation going on in the background, and mass adoption is progressing rapidly.
Keep scrolling to read the most essential crypto news of the week.
Terra Classic’s price increased by more than 250 percent in September
Between May and June, investors lost a lot of money in the Terra Luna project, when its price collapsed by almost 100 percent. However, the project wasn’t completely ditched – it was rebranded as Terra Classic. Now its value has more than tripled in September. How is it possible?
Due to the rebranding, the project has received a lot of doubts and criticism from analysts and investors. However, traders have not been afraid of analysts but have started buying Terra Classic in large quantities.
The developers wanted to get investors back into the project. They launched a new, more attractive staking service. Also, the burning mechanism has made investors interested in Terra Classic.
The new staking service launched on August 27, and it served as the first catalyst for the price increase. According to the Twitter bot account that automatically tracks Terra Classic’s staking amount, over 9 percent of the project’s supply is already staked.
Terra Classic offers investors great interest returns of up to 37,8 percent annually. This may have been the reason for the great enthusiasm of investors. However, high-interest income cannot remain valid indefinitely, and time will tell when interest income will decrease.
In addition to staking, a “token burning” mechanism has been implemented for the project. It is a coded-in feature that intentionally “burns,” i.e., destroys a certain amount of cryptocurrencies, reducing the supply. It means that the cryptocurrency is removed from circulation, which reduces the total amount while theoretically increasing the value of other coins. This can also be thought of as a reverse-split type function familiar to the stock market.
One Terra community member has proposed a 1,2 percent token burn “tax” on each transaction. Excited by this proposal, people believe that the price of Terra will rise. However, according to Lunc Burner, some sort of mechanism is already in place, as 3,6 billion tokens have already been removed from circulation.
According to analysis, Luna is currently overbought, and its price will correct in the near future. Traders’ volume has decreased, which would indicate a waning belief in the continuation of the upward trend.
How did Terra Luna collapse in the spring?
Terra Luna was doing well until May, and it was one of the most talked about projects in the crypto market for a long time. Its ecosystem was built on two tokens: LUNA and stablecoin UST. Its stablecoin was one of the most popular on the market and was supposed to be a safer way for investors to invest in cryptocurrencies.
The operation of the UST stablecoin was based on algorithms that changed due to the influence of the market. Too fast a change in the market collapsed its value, and many investors lost significant amounts of money.
Stablecoins are believed to be safe, which is why many investors put a lot of money into Terra. In only a few days, Terra’s market value collapsed by tens of billions of dollars and caused an unprecedented domino effect in the market, as a result of which many DeFi services went bankrupt. At the same time, the collapse of Luna affected the weakening of the entire crypto market.
In the collapse of Terra, not only those who bought at the top lost their money, but also many others who invested in it after its value was reduced. The value of Terra dropped by up to 99 percent in a day when many investors believed it to be a cheap and potential target. The decline didn’t end there – Luna collapsed by 99 percent the second and third time.
Terra Luna has served as a good lesson that anything can happen when investing in cryptocurrencies.
Read also: How did Terra Luna and UST collapse?
Ford into the metaverse
Ford has filed a trademark application for its future plans. Ford plans to enter the metaverse and NFT world. The company has filed 19 different trademark applications for its car brands, including Mustang, Bronco, Lincoln, and Explorer.
Trademark applications cover virtual cars, vans, SUVs, and clothing. In addition, they include a possible online store where NFTs are sold.
In the documents he gave to the United States Patent Office, Ford says that he designs digital art, text, sound, and video. Digital tokens are verified on the blockchain and converted into NFT tokens.
The company has also revealed its plans for virtual accessories. The idea is that in the future, you could buy Ford car parts and attach them to cars in other worlds in the metaverse. In addition, the purpose is to publish clothes and accessories.
Ford announced that it will enter the Web3 world shortly after the company made major cuts in its workforce to reduce costs. Ford is not the first car company to announce that it is joining the metaverse.
Other global automakers such as Nissan, Toyota, and Hyundai have also announced plans to invest in the growing metaverse. Luxury car brands such as Bentley and Lamborghini have already published their own NFT collections.
Crypto developer activity on the decline
The activity of crypto developers has played an important role in the success of crypto projects. In general, the less development work has been done, the slower the growth has been in the market as well.
During the last three months, the activity of crypto developers has decreased by as much as 26 percent. According to blockchain researcher Artemis, the activity of the four largest smart contract platforms has decreased even more. Ethereum by 30,5 percent, Polkadot by 43,6 percent, Solana by 48,4 percent, and Cosmos by 48,9 percent.
Although development has slowed down on average, there are still a number of exceptions. The number of developers of the peer-to-peer network, IPFS, has increased by more than 200 percent, and Internet Computer dev activity, on the other hand, has increased by 21,7 percent.
Blockchain developers are mainly responsible for developing the blockchain architecture, maintaining the infrastructure, and building smart contracts for applications.
The amount of blockchain development is considered the most critical metric for the success of smart contract platforms as well. Where there is no development, there is no success.
Crypto researcher Tascha Che has said on her Twitter account that the decrease in the number of developers is only a good thing. According to him, there have been too many tourist developers and tourist investors in the crypto world who are slowly leaving as a result of the market decline.
The decrease in the number of developers has happened at the same time that the crypto market has fallen by more than 50 percent. The period examined is from April to June. Investors’ and developers’ interest in cryptocurrencies is strongly correlated with the direction of the crypto market.
The White House is stomping on cryptos
In its latest study, the White House has come to the conclusion that the environmental harm of cryptocurrencies is too great. The United States will not reach its environmental goals if they do not limit the energy usage of cryptocurrency mining.
According to the study, cryptocurrencies use an estimated 50 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year in the United States alone. The lack of monitoring of mining makes analysis difficult, but according to estimates, they use more electricity than the normal use of computers and home lighting combined.
According to the report, high energy use consumes electricity networks and increases the price of electricity. It is also worth noting that the report clearly stated that it is impossible to monitor future energy consumption due to the changing ways of mining blockchains.
There was no direct proposal to ban cryptos, but according to the White House publication, states should develop sustainable solutions to reduce the environmental harm of blockchains. Some of the proposals in the report were also related to setting energy efficiency standards, monitoring, and research.
The number of crypto trademark applications increased in 2022
The number of trademark applications in the United States is on the rise in 2022. March was the most significant growth month of all. In total, 1078 NFT applications, 604 cryptocurrency applications, and 759 metaverse applications were made.
This year has already exceeded last year’s total number of patent applications. By the end of August, more than 3,600 patent applications had been filed, compared to a total of 3,516 last year. Applications related to metaverse and Web3 doubled, and applications related to NFT technology almost tripled.
The peak readings in March coincided with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing that Instagram was preparing to accept NFTs. Most of the applications were made in the spring, and now the number of new applications has decreased towards autumn. The same number of applications were made in August and July as in March.
Cointelegraph published on the first of September that luxury clothing manufacturer Hermès has filed a patent application in the United States. The application concerns the use of the company’s name in the metaverse, NFT and cryptocurrencies. This is the result of a lawsuit where someone allegedly profited from using the company name and made money selling NFTs.
In addition, many global brands and big organizations such as Meta, Formula One, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Gatorade and the U.S. Space Force have filed patent applications in 2022, hinting at companies moving into the crypto world in some way.
Read also: How to invest in NFTs – practical guide
Why is the number of trademark applications increasing?
Usually, when the crypto market goes down, there is a great desire to develop new things and focus on the essentials. Of course, it involves the interest of large companies in the crypto world.
Due to the things happening around the world, companies have to think about their own strategy anyway. People cannot afford to buy expensive physical products, and many countries have had to stop production completely.
The rise in the price of electricity and global layoffs from various companies require companies to come up with new ways to get revenue for themselves.
The digital world is open to everyone, regardless of the time of day, and the costs for the company are a fraction compared to physical products.
Also, the rising interest in cryptos drives other people to make money from companies’ brands, which is why companies protect their names with trademark applications.
Half of the cryptocurrency traffic comes from games
The gaming market takes more than 50% of crypto traffic based on data from August. A large number of investors have disappeared from crypto due to the bear market, but games are constantly being played, and therefore the traffic is really high, even hundreds of millions of transactions per month.
New information from DappRadar suggests that games will play an important role in blockchains. According to the report, more than 50% of the traffic in the crypto world comes from games, based on August figures.
Compared to the previous month, the number is 7 percentage points lower, but in July the popularity of the crypto market was even lower, which allowed a large percentage of the gaming world.
According to DappRadar’s data, there were almost 850,000 unique active crypto wallets related to gaming every day, and the monetary value of the exchange was almost 700 million dollars.
Gaming is an easy way to get involved in the Web3 world, blockchains, and cryptocurrencies. According to the study, 75% of the interviewees said that they started getting to know crypto just for the sake of gaming.
GameFi and its problems
The sector of blockchain games is called GameFi, which comes from the words Gaming Finance. It is expected to be one of the most successful sectors of the crypto market in the near future. Many well-known traditional game companies have announced that they are investing in blockchain games.
Despite the bright future, the sector is still plagued by major challenges.
Many games do not invest much in security, which puts their users at risk of becoming a victim of hacking. In order to play games based on the blockchain, the player must connect their digital wallet with the game’s website. There are plenty of scam sites and phishing sites, so the player must be extremely careful when connecting their wallet to games.
In addition, it is difficult to identify real players among bots. According to one analysis, 40 percent of the users of sixty different Web3 games were either automated bots or different users created by one person. So it’s hard to say how many unique, and real players crypto games have. However, bots are not the only problem of blockchain games – they plague almost all Internet services.
How do crypto games work?
If you’ve ever played any games, you know that games usually have currency and items. In a crypto-powered game, you can actually own that cryptocurrency and the in-game items. You can also do real trade with other players.
It works almost the same as exchanging cryptos with someone else, but it happens in-game. The goods in the games can be owned as NFT tokens and can be transferred between different platforms. The content of the traditional game world is limited to only a single world, but with the help of blockchains, they can be combined.
Games have become more common in cryptocurrencies, as they bring opportunities to make money in the most diverse forms. Although the rewards are small, some players can make a living from it, as the hours spent on the games are insane.
The exploitation of Queen Elizabeth’s name in cryptos
Queen Elizabeth II of England died last Thursday. This has once again given opportunists in the crypto world a chance to make money using the queen’s name.
After the queen’s death, more than 40 different cryptocurrencies have already entered the market using the queen’s name on both the Ethereum and Binance blockchains.
“Queen Elizabeth Inu,” “Queen Doge,” “Queen Inu II,” “God Save The Queen,” and many other names that required ingenuity have reached the crypto market for sale. For example, Queen Elizabeth Inu crypto rose 23,000 percent on Binance and almost 4,000 percent on Uniswap.
The phenomenon is not new in the crypto market – almost every time something significant happens in the world, opportunists try to make money out of it. A good example is also Elon Musk, under whose name dozens of different crypto coins have been made.
The prices of these projects are unlikely to stay on the rise for very long. An investor should always think about what the project’s value consists of when considering an investment.
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