Jul 6
Weekly NFT Report: The Return of ENS
Summary
The bear market is in full swing, as BTC continues to explore ~20k region, and ~1.1k region for ETH. Stories of crypto companies facing difficulties continue, with the latest being Vauld, a Singapore-based crypto trading and lending platform, suspending withdrawals. Voyager has also filed for Chapter 11 protection.
Top performers in Top 100 are: ATOM (+25%), UNI (+8%), SAND (+9%), BAT (+18%), AR (+30%), USTC (+33%), EVMOS (+34%), CEL (+32%)
Top underperformers in the Top 100 are: DOT (-7%), HBAR (-7%), KCS (-14%), BTT (-9%), HT (-14%)
In the NFT space, nothing much has changed over the last 7 days with OpenSea volume and transaction counts (Chart 1,2,3) continuing to remain deflated. The month of June’22 recorded the lowest NFT volume since Jul’21, coming in just above $600M. This represents 86% drawdown from Jan’21. Also worth noting that average USD value per Open Trade has gone from $2,000 in February to just $200. In terms of the prices, both blue-chip NFT and broader market prices (Chart 6) have largely stabilized. Pretty quiet on the NFT front, except ENS domains spiking up again, and reaching over 30k new addresses on July 4, with 000.eth domain being sold for record 300 ETH.
Deep Dive
Facebook begins testing Ethereum and Polygon NFTs on profiles
According to Meta’s Product Manager Navdeep Singh, Meta will allow Facebook users to showcase NFTs on their profile page. Meta has previously started testing NFT integrations on Instagram in May’22, and plan to make it available across Meta platforms so that people can cross-post on the platforms.
DOJ indicts 6 in 4 crypto scams
The Department of Justice announced criminal charges against 6 defendants for 4 separate cases for their alleged involvement in cryptocurrency-related fraud, including the largest known NFT scheme charged to date. The NFT scam featured an NFT project called Baller Ape NFT, whereby the founders pulled down the website and fled with investors’ money worth ~$2.6mio after the first-day public sale. The founders then launder the stolen money. Other cases that were indicated included scheme that involved unregistered crypto assets, an ICO faking business associations with top companies, and investment funds traded on crypto exchanges.
Polium to launch Polium One, a multi-chain console for Web3 gaming
More about the launch: the console will feature its own multi-chain cryptocurrency wallet, and the controller will have a wallet button for users to make trades more efficiently, and with biometric verification. The company also mentioned that it would be minting a Polium Pass NFT, which will allow holders to claim a console on the initial launch day. However, Chinese NFT market is not untrustworthy, given its industry players, comprising of country’s largest tech firms (including JD.com, Baidu, Tencent, etc.), have signed an agreement to check the identity of users using digital collectible trading platforms.
Following
Big Money Raises, and Entrants
Mona, metaverse world-building platform, raises $14.6M with participation from Protocol Labs, OpenSea, Polygon Studios, etc.
NFT Brands, a web3 development company providing end-to-end metaverse & NFT solutions for brands & creators, raised $2.5mio.
Magic Square, crypto App store for blockchain projects, raised $3m — with participation from Binance Labs, Republic, KuCoin Labs, GSR, IQ Protocol, Gravity Ventures, AlphaGrep, and TheDaoMaker.
