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welcome to Chain reaction.
PSA: I’m at ETH Denver this week so if you see me say hello! I have some Chain Reaction pins and the first few people who find me will get one. Think of it like a free NFT. However, it goes into wallets, wallets, not cryptocurrency wallets. Wow!
Anyway, let’s get into the news. Oh Happy March!
February capped off as a big month for the NFT market as non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain surpassed $1.5 billion for the first time since May 2022.
According to data from The Block, NFT marketplace Blur hit a record monthly volume of $1.12 billion in February, accounting for 74.6% of total volume across all Ethereum NFT marketplaces. (Block data aggregation excludes wash trading — when traders buy and sell items between traders to artificially increase volume and price.)
By comparison, OpenSea, currently the second largest Ethereum NFT marketplace, had a volume of $270.11 million in February. However, overall trading volume has declined since then.
In a recent rebound, Blur beat out the once-largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, for the third month in a row as the cryptocurrency market debated the issue of NFT creator loyalty.
“Looking at what’s been going on with OpenSea and Blur lately, it’s clearly a concern from a market and loyalty battle standpoint,” Yat Siu, chairman of Animoca Brands, told TechCrunch. “But the result is a significant increase in volume, which means there’s a different kind of excitement back in the space.”
See below for details.
web3 of the week
Ethereum NFT Marketplace Exceeds $1 Billion in Volume for First Time Since May as Creator Loyalty War Heats Up (TC+)
As mentioned earlier, the NFT market is heating up again, and the rise of Blur in the NFT market has rekindled the royalty debate. In previous quarters, OpenSea had maintained the top spot on his NFT marketplace, and had tried to balance creator royalties, but Blur’s aggressive stance has forced OpenSea to change course. increase. But as his large NFT marketplace slashes fees, this could be a “slippery slope” that hurts creators in the long run, Siu said.
Does web3 need a venture bailout now that AI has all the hype? (TC+)
Shifting investor priorities, higher cash prices, and the lack of large deals that were common in the last startup boom could leave many late-stage web3 companies cash-strapped. And the clock is ticking. For a startup stuck in an outdated category, it feels bad to see venture capital flowing elsewhere.
Chainlink’s new platform allows web3 projects to connect to Web 2.0 systems such as AWS and Meta
Chainlink, a web3 services platform, is about to launch a self-service serverless platform that will let developers connect decentralized applications (dApps) or smart contracts to any Web 2.0 API, the company says TechCrunch spoke exclusively to The new platform also supports more widely used programming languages such as JavaScript, allowing developers new to web3 to enter the space. It also offers integrations with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Meta, and more.
latest pod
In last week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Lolli co-founder and CEO Alex Adelman. Founded in 2018, Lolli is a bitcoin rewards app that allows you to earn bitcoin or cashback when you shop online or in person at his over 10,000 stores including McDonald’s, Starbucks, Dunkin’, CVS and Costco.
Adelman was previously on the team that built commerce gateway Cosmic, which was acquired by PopSugar in 2015 and by Ebates and Rakuten in 2017. Also, like Jacquelyn, Adelman went to UNC-Chapel Hill.
Lolli has grown significantly over the past few years from less than 1,000 store partnerships to over 10,000 stores. Adelman took a deep dive into the crypto ecosystem’s reward system and how it has evolved over the years, as well as his Lolli future.
We also delved into the topic of Bitcoin NFTs and ordinal numbers, which is the latest buzz in the community. We discussed whether Bitcoin NFTs are a good fit for the ecosystem, how the technology can grow in the long term, and how these digital inscriptions might fit into his Lolli business model.
apply Chain reaction upon apple podcast, Spotify Or check out the latest episodes on your favorite pod platform. If you like it, please leave us a review!
follow the money
- Chinese Regulation-Compliant Blockchain Conflux Raises $10M in Private Token Sale
- Decentralized Crypto Exchange Mangrove Raises $7.4 Million Series A Round
- Singapore-based digital asset exchange DigiFT has raised $10.5 million in its pre-series A round.
- Institutional DeFi-Focused Wealth Management Platform Hashnote Raises $5M
- Term Labs Raises $2.5M Seed Round to Build Safer Crypto Lending for Institutions
This list is compiled with information from Messari and TechCrunch’s own reports.
