A lot has happened in the crypto market and the discussion on social media has been heated. The crypto world is talking about the capital fleeing the ecosystem and the NFT earnings of clothing brands. The successful financing round of the Estonian startup Ready Player Me also attracted a lot of publicity.
This is what the crypto world is talking about right now!
Carnage on the crypto market this weekend
The crypto market had a tough time over the weekend. The month-long market rise came to an abrupt end and the price of many cryptocurrencies plummeted to their lowest point in several months. Bitcoin futures saw the most liquidation in eight months as Bitcoin fell below $22,000 on Friday. Later on Sunday, the price broke the psychological $20,000 mark.
The good-looking upswing of several weeks in the crypto market ended in a quick manner, causing the liquidation of 157,000 traders’ positions within 24 hours. In total, almost 551 million dollars were liquidated from traders, of which 203 million were Bitcoin positions. Ethereum positions accounted for approximately $140 million.
The green long positions in the picture can clearly be seen to have played a dominant role, which indicates the traders’ faith in the market. There were almost 400 million dollars in long positions and 41 million dollars in short positions.
Central banks have actively changed their interest rate policy. The recent recovery in the crypto market stemmed from a smaller-than-expected rate hike. The market reacted strongly again, this time in the other direction when news of new interest rate hikes reached the feed of crypto investors.
What are long and short positions?
Traditional investing is usually buying an investment instrument and waiting for the value to increase. This is called a long position. Shorting means borrowing an investment product and hoping for a decrease in value. If the value of the loanable investment product falls, it can be bought back on the market, in which case the investor makes a profit.
Up until the last few days, the crypto market had been doing well, so investors were speculating that prices would continue to rise. Prices did not rise and many investors lost their positions in a so-called margin call. A margin call means that there aren’t enough funds in the investment account to cover the loan, so the investor’s funds are liquidated because the investor is forced to sell their position. A margin call happens because shorting is based on a loan.
Example of shorting:
Bananas cost $10 each. The monkey has 5 bananas in the market. The snake borrows 5 bananas from the monkey and sells them on, hoping to lower their price. If the price goes down, the snake can later buy back the bananas at a lower price and give them back to the monkey, making a profit on the difference.
If the other monkeys notice what the snake is trying to do, they can buy all the bananas from the market. The snake is forced to buy back the bananas at a higher price so that he can later give them back to the monkey at the right price.
Americans want cryptos to be taught in schools
According to a survey conducted in the United States, 64% of parents familiar with cryptocurrencies would like to see cryptos taught in schools. Crypto-savvy parents are already putting as much as $766 per semester into their children’s cryptocurrency studies outside of school. The results of the survey show that American parents want their children to learn about the financial world of the future at an early stage.
Study.com’s research revealed that 64 % of parents and 67 % of university graduates believe that studying cryptocurrencies should be part of mandatory education.
The research was conducted for parents and interviewees whose knowledge of the subject was vast enough to understand the entirety of cryptocurrencies.
Along with the growing awareness of cryptocurrencies, other studies have also been conducted. According to one survey, 88 % of Americans have heard of cryptocurrencies and 16 % have invested in them. Even 46% of those who invested in them expected the monetary value of cryptocurrencies to increase.
A few American universities, such as the University of Connecticut and the University of Arizona, have included cryptocurrency courses as part of their offerings. In a 14-week course, a professor teaches the handling of cryptocurrencies and how those currencies affect our economy.
The study also revealed the importance of future economic development and diversification of investments. The mayor of New York said in his interview last year that local schools should start teaching about cryptocurrencies.
Big clothing brands are making money in the NFT market
With the NFT boom, the world’s most famous clothing brands have been able to take advantage of a new source of income. Global companies have managed to net hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from digital collectibles as interest in them has exploded over the past couple of years.
Leading clothing brands such as Nike, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana and Adidas have collected a total of up to $260 million in revenue from NFT sales. The best performer has been Nike, which is the overwhelming number one with $185 million in NFT sales. D&G comes in second after selling digital collectibles for $25 million.
Interest in NFTs grew significantly last year. The most surfaced collectibles, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, collected billions of dollars in revenue. Many large companies have joined the NFT trend with the aim of connecting with a new generation of customers.
Investors and analysts believe that the NFT market will grow and expand in the future. At the moment, the general opinion of investors is admittedly somewhat negative, because as the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum has fallen, the prices of NFT projects have also plummeted.
What is an NFT?
NFT comes from the words Non-fungible token, which means tokenizing something specific and putting it on the blockchain. For example, Bitcoin is not a non-fungible but a fungible token, because all Bitcoins are equal. An NFT is always unique and a good example of this is the aforementioned Bored Ape NFTs, which are all unique.
NFT technology has been used in recent years, for example, in social media profile pictures. You have been able to present your own NFT in the profile picture of your user account. With NFT profile pictures, people who invest in cryptos can tell other people that they are on the side of cryptos, which promotes adaptation and growth of the ecosystem.
Art and culture have also become part of the NFT market. NFT can serve, for example, as an authenticity tag for a festival ticket or a work of art. Their operation is constantly being developed. Many crypto influencers have taken a stand on the development of NFTs in particular and say that they will be revolutionary in the society of the future.
More around the topic: How to invest in NFTs?
The Estonian metaverse startup raised 56 million dollars
Ready Player Me, an Estonian startup developing metaverse avatars, enables the creation of game characters made with artificial intelligence between blockchains. In its latest investment round, the company managed to raise up to 56 million dollars to develop wider operations between different projects in the metaverse.
“The shared identity between games, game worlds, and applications enables a true metaverse experience. Regardless of the platform.”, says the company’s CEO Timmu Tõke at his press conference.
Tõke believes that in virtual game worlds it is important for users to create the character they like and get accessories for it that works in the same way in all worlds.
Ready Player Me has formed cooperation agreements between different companies, such as Adidas and Warner Brothers. The company and its product are popular with developers and users because building a similar identity between many different game worlds are important.
Many large companies want to join the crypto world and Ready Player Me is enabling this transition by offering companies cooperation opportunities. Game worlds are starting to move more widely into digital form, for example, virtual reality, and players also want to decorate their characters with well-known brands.
What is the Metaverse?
Metaverse means a virtual world where the importance of social contact is emphasized. A well-known pioneer of metaverses has been the Finnish Habbo Hotel. In the game, you could spend time with other users and, for example, exchange furniture with each other.
The idea behind metaverse platforms operating on blockchains is to connect different worlds together. You can move your game character between different worlds or move stuff outside the game. The new technology enables a completely new gaming experience and a more captivating gaming world.
There are many game worlds, but at the moment they are not connected to each other in any way. In the future, game worlds can be combined with each other and at the same time bring more content to players.
The crypto ATM company will be listed on the public exchange in 2023
One of North America’s largest crypto ATM suppliers, Bitcoin Depot, plans to list on the Nasdaq stock exchange in early 2023. The company plans to merge with SPAC GSRT II Meteora in connection with the stock exchange listing. By the $885 million merger with SPAC GSRT II Meteora, there would be only one company for sale on the stock exchange at the beginning of next year.
The merger has already been approved unanimously by the management of both companies, and the decision is expected to be finalized at the beginning of 2023. Bitcoin Depot has an extensive Bitcoin ATM infrastructure and the SPAC provides money to expand operations. With cooperation, growth can be made more widely.
Currently, Bitcoin Depot has over 7,000 machines across North America and regardless of the market, it continues to grow. Different needs for crypto payments will grow and the importance of money transfer will be emphasized even more.
Up to $1 million is paid for finding Ethereum bugs
Bounties for finding Ethereum bugs are getting bigger. This is an update made directly to the Ethereum network. A reward of up to a million dollars can be paid for finding bugs that hinder operations.
The scope of the Ethereum blockchain update The Merge is so large that finding errors will pay up to four times the amount compared to the previous one. The size of the reward encourages developers to do their best to find bugs in the blockchain.
In July 2020, $5,000 compensation rewards were paid for bugs discovered by Ethereum developers. Today, the amount can be up to a million dollars. Many crypto projects have caused users to lose their money and it drives Ethereum developers to invest in security even more.
Errors in the operation of blockchains cannot be corrected afterward. If something happens, it is recorded on the blockchain and cannot be undone. Therefore, it is absolutely important to be aware of errors in advance so that they can be corrected.
Big rewards for finding problems
The largest single reward for a blockchain bug to date has come from MakerDAO. The company announced that it is offering a reward of up to $10 million to professionals who highlight threats and disadvantages to smart contracts. The prize is awarded in the form of DAI stable currency. It is the fifth largest stablecoin with a value of almost 10 billion dollars.
OpenSea turns into a ghost town – sales volume dropped 99% in three months
OpenSea, the world’s largest marketplace for digital collectibles, i.e. NFTs has suffered enormously from the bear market. Its daily trading volume has fallen drastically with the collapse of Bitcoin and Ethereum. NFT investors fear that there is a bubble in the market.
Still, in May, OpenSea processed a record $405 million worth of NFT transactions per day. On August 28, the daily sales volume was only 5 million, which is about 99 percent less than three months earlier.
In addition to the volume, the number of active users and transactions of the marketplace has also dropped drastically. The sharp declines in all indicators suggest that interest in blockchain-based digital collectibles has waned considerably. They are not seen nearly as valuable as in the spring.
Smaller NFT projects and collections have suffered the most, with volume and floor prices dropping to practically zero. But not even the leading digital collectibles projects have survived unscathed. For example, Bored Ape Yacht Club’s floor price, i.e. the lowest amount that has been paid for an NFT in the collection, has fallen by more than 50 percent.
Why is the NFT market crashing?
The prices of NFTs are quoted in the native currency of the blockchain where they are published. The majority is traded with Ethereum’s native currency, Ether (ETH). It means that if the price of Ether collapses, the values of Ethereum-based NFTs will also fall. At least if their value is measured in dollars.
The NFT market strongly follows the movements of the crypto market, and the crypto market has had a record high correlation with the stock market this year. The development of the stock market is affected by the interest policy of the US and European central banks and the decrease in the circulation of new money. In other words, when the US central bank FED decides to raise interest rates, it causes a domino effect and the effects are reflected in the speculative NFT market.
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