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Hi there,
I was telling a friend recently about coming across a crypto scam.
His response: “Sounds like the entire industry.” I could only laugh.
Even as someone who’s optimistic about blockchain, I have to agree that the reputation of the crypto industry is in tatters among non-tech folks.And a lot of this negative publicity is self-inflicted.
But ignore the crypto bros flaunting their bags and flashy cars for a moment.There’s plenty of crypto builders who really believe in the tech, and I don’t mean that ironically.
You’ll find that Token Issue features the projects of these people a lot.In this edition, we cover Binance’s foray into stablecoins and the new developments in the space, as well as a promising NFT protocol that might break out soon.
— Terence
THE BIG STORY Binance’s big BUSD push heralds a stablecoin summer
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Stablecoins, in my opinion, are crucial for crypto to reach mass adoption.
And despite the market winter, we may unsurprisingly be entering stablecoin season.In fact, bleak times make less risky assets like stablecoins more attractive.
In this subscriber-only analysis, we look at how various crypto players like Binance, Aave, and Curve want stablecoins to play a bigger role in their domains.
What exactly is motivating them to do this? It’s certainly about improving user experience and making more moolah.Read on to get the full breakdown.
⭐ TO THE STARS A look at what’s pushing Web3 forward
A hot new protocol could change the NFT game
NFTs make digital assets easily tradable.The problem is that actually selling each of your non-fungible tokens can take a long time, especially if your price tag is high.
It’s the nature of the beast, as each NFT is somewhat unique, making matching buyers and sellers tough.
A somewhat new protocol called SudoAMM could solve this.
As explained by Crypto.com Capital vice president Ben Wee in his detailed Twitter thread , it’s basically a means for users to instantly sell their NFTs.
The protocol does this by using presets to automatically adjust and set prices that pairs of buyers and sellers would find acceptable.
What are the implications? This could make NFT trading more cost-efficient (SudoAMM charges 0.5% in fees compared to popular NFT marketplace Opensea’s 2.5%).
It could also make crypto lending using NFTs as collateral more practical, according to Wee.
In the event borrowers default, for instance, their NFTs can instead be instantly liquidated at decent prices.Previously, their assets would be sold on Opensea at low prices to “incentivize a fast sale.”
We’ll see if more NFT marketplaces adopt this model.
🌙 TO THE MOON Tokens, NFTs, and yield generators we’re noticing
1️⃣ Ethereum : You might find it odd that Ethereum is listed here.But thanks to The Merge , some people are preparing for a surge in ETH prices and looking to quickly sell duplicate tokens that will arise from an anticipated hard fork.CoinGecko’s Bobby Ong breaks it down here .
By the way, if you’re wondering wen merge , this countdown timer is useful.
2️⃣ Y00ts : This is a Solana NFT project with a lot of buzz and an astounding floor price (not Bored Ape Yacht Club-level crazy, though).T00bs, an NFT that allows you to mint Y00ts, are being sold for at least US$5,000 right now.
The people behind Y00ts are also the creators of DeGods , an NFT project with an even more jaw-dropping floor price of US$14,000.
DeGods describes itself as a “digital art collection and global community of creators, developers, entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, experimenters, and innovators.”
It recently bought a professional basketball team.Yes, you read that right.
Image credit: DeGods
🌏 BACK TO EARTH The week’s biggest roadblocks
Islamic state turns to NFTs to spread terror message : This is the first known instance of an NFT being used to spread militant Islamic propaganda.The non-fungible token was briefly listed on Opensea but was quickly removed.
The underlying issue here is how harmful information might be irrevocably posted on blockchains.
As BBC reported , someone once posted child abuse images on a blockchain, which meant a network consensus was needed to roll back its transactions and remove the data.
And if harmful information was encoded into a transaction that was approved many blocks ago on a popular protocol, removing it might be impossible.
STILL A PONZI SCHEME The dark underbelly of Web3 and crypto today
“NFT this.NFT that.
Why is every-f*ckin-body doing NFTs?”
– MC Hotdog, Taiwanese rapper (English captions available)
If you’re into hip-hop, this one’s for you.It’s not so much a critique of NFTs and metaverses, really – it’s more of a discussion about the world we live in.But isn’t the former a reflection of the latter?
Still from the music video / Image credit: MC Hotdog.
