Blockchain

Cumulative NFT Sales Among 18 Blockchain Networks Surpass $36 Billion

20/05/2022 by Idelto Editor

Cumulative NFT Sales Among 18 Blockchain Networks Surpasses $36 Billion

Statistics recorded this week show that the aggregate number of non-fungible token (NFT) sales, settled across more than a dozen different blockchains, has officially surpassed $36 billion. While there are 18 competing blockchains offering NFTs, Ethereum-based NFT sales dominate by more than 75%. While Ronin commands the second-largest amount of NFT sales, NFTs from the game Axie Infinity have been the top-selling collection for quite some time, with more than $4 billion in global sales to date.

$36 Billion in All-Time NFT Sales, Ethereum Dominates Sales by More Than 75%

The world of blockchain-based digital collectibles has been a force to reckon with as the NFT ecosystem has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. This week’s metrics indicate that all-time NFT sales have surpassed $36 billion to date.

The $36 billion in sales recorded on cryptoslam.io’s NFT dashboard stems from 18 different blockchains like Ethereum, Ronin, Solana, Avalanche, Wax, Polygon, and Flow to name a few. Ethereum’s $27 billion in NFT sales, however, represents 75.02% of the total number of sales across all the chains.

The top blockchains in terms of all-time NFT sales besides Ethereum include Ronin ($4B), Solana ($2.2B), Flow ($1B), Polygon ($591M), Wax ($430M), Avalanche ($277M), Immutablex ($98.7M), Palm ($50.5M), and Tezos ($40.4M). All-time NFT sales from the top nine blockchains add up to approximately 24.61% of the non-Ethereum-based NFT sales.

The remaining nine blockchains below Tezo’s position only represent 0.37% of the $36 billion in all-time NFT sales volume. Ethereum’s 1,300,118 NFT buyers and Ronin’s 1,742,207 NFT buyers are the only two chains with more than a million unique NFT buyers.

Out of the $36 billion in NFT sales, the top NFT collection in terms of all-time sales is Axie Infinity, which has seen more than $4 billion in sales. The second-largest collection in terms of sales is Cryptopunks, which has seen $2.24 billion in sales.

Cryptopunks is followed by Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) which has recorded $2.12 billion in all-time sales. BAYC is followed by Mutant Ape Yacht Club ($1.52M), Artblocks ($1.25M), NBA Top Shot ($1M), Otherdeeds ($906K), Azuki ($756K), Clonex ($671K), and Veefriends ($538K).

Most Expensive NFTs Stem from Veefriends, BAYC, Cryptopunks, Cyberkong — Opensea Still Commands the Most Amount of Sales by an NFT Marketplace

All-time sales metrics from cryptoslam.io’s dashboard indicate that the most expensive NFT sold is Veefriends’ “Thoughtful Three Horned Harpik,” which sold for 100,000 ether or $316 million. The Veefriends NFT is followed by Cryptopunk 5822 which sold for 8,000 ether or $23.7 million.

Five of the most expensive NFTs sold out of the top ten are BAYC NFTs and two are Cryptopunks. Other collections in the most expensive NFT top ten list included Meebits 10,761 and Cyberkong VX 8252.

Out of all the NFTs sold, most are purchased on the NFT marketplace Opensea with the market Looksrare following the platform’s lead. Other notable NFT marketplaces include Magic Eden, Flow’s NBA Top Shot market, Mobox, Solanart, Wax’s Atomicmarket, Bloctobay, and Rarible.

While billions of dollars worth of NFTs have been sold during the last few weeks, NFT sales have been dropping significantly. Weekly NFT trade volumes are down and weekly NFT sales have also floundered during the past few weeks. If the crypto economy is truly in a bear market cycle it will be interesting to see how the NFT industry handles the downturn.

What do you think about the 18 blockchains recording $36 billion in all-time NFT sales? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Panama President Mulls Crypto Bill Approval Due to Money Laundering Concerns

19/05/2022 by Idelto Editor

The president of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo, has declared he will not sign the recently approved cryptocurrency bill passed by the National Assembly of the country in its current form. Cortizo stated that one of his main concerns about the bill is the stance it takes regarding money laundering activities and crypto. Cortizo may approve some parts of the bill while vetoing others.

Panama’s President Considers Crypto Bill Veto

Laurentino Cortizo, the president of Panama, has announced his opinion regarding the recently approved cryptocurrency bill, and how it might be too lax when it comes to dealing with unlawful activities like money laundering in the sector. While speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Gateway Latin America conference in Panama City, Cortizo stated:

If I’m going to answer you right now with the information that I have, which is not enough, I will not sign that law.

Furthermore, Cortizo explained that he and his government would have to be “very careful” if the crypto bill presented has clauses dealing with money laundering activities, remarking that these are very important to Panama.

Panama allows the president to have veto power over the bills presented by the National Assembly, and Cortizo could use this attribution to repel the bill in its current form. However, Cortizo declared he and his lawyers are still reviewing the law to make a decision.

Panama’s Crypto Law

Panama started its cryptocurrency regulation journey last year, when Gabriel Silva, a national representative, introduced a crypto bill with a proposal that aimed to modernize the country and bring it up to par with other countries in the area. The bill, which faced some changes during its discussion, establishes pivotal concepts about crypto, blockchain, and virtual asset service providers.

In addition to this, the approved version of the bill introduces blockchain as a tool to improve the transparency of state spending, like other projects introduced already in Latam. This would include the progressive migration of public records to the blockchain.

Another important proposal of the bill is the digitalization of the identification process, with issued IDs being published on a public blockchain. Cortizo might take some of the articles passed and make them law, and veto other parts of the bill. To conclude, Cortizo stated:

It is an innovative law from what I have heard, it’s a good law. However, we do have a solid financial system here in Panama and one of the things I’m waiting on is when you have a global regulation of crypto-assets.

What do you think about the opinion of the president of Panama regarding the passed crypto bill? Tell us in the comments section below.

Digital Collectible Owners Continue to Take Loans out Using NFTs as Collateral

19/05/2022 by Idelto Editor

While non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles have become a hot commodity over the last 12 months, a number of NFT owners are taking loans out against their NFTs. This month, a project called Nftfi has facilitated $25.6 million in NFT loans so far, and last month the lending marketplace recorded nearly $50 million in NFT loans.

NFT Lending and Borrowing Continues to Grow

NFTs have become a billion-dollar industry during the last year and a popular blockchain technology use case. Even though sales have slid in recent times amid the crypto market downturn, NFTs are still selling for hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars per digital collectible. In addition to the NFT sales and auctions, NFT owners are also loaning their digital collectibles for access to liquidity. For instance, a decentralized finance (defi) platform called Nftfi has seen $185.4 million in cumulative loan volume since the market’s inception.

In the last week, the peer-to-peer marketplace for NFT collateralized loans recorded four loans for more than $100K or more each. On May 16, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) 7,813 was used for a $100K loan, and Autoglyph 231 was leveraged for a $200K loan on May 12. BAYC 6,276 was used for a $150K loan on May 10, and the BAYC 371 owner was able to obtain a $115K loan for the NFT the day before. So far this month, Nftfi has facilitated $25.6 million in NFT loans, according to statistics from Dune Analytics. Nftfi is also partners with the blockchain firms Flow and Animoca Brands.

NFT Lending Competition

Nftfi is not the only NFT lending platform on the block, as there are others like Arcade, Nexo.io, and Drops. Statistics show the Drops loan market has facilitated $6,746,515 in lending. Arcade has raised $17.8 million from investors like Pantera Capital, Franklin Templeton Investments, Castle Island Ventures, and Protofund. Another competitor is the peer-to-peer NFT lending marketplace Flowty, which is built on the Flow blockchain network. Flowty raised $4.5 million in the company’s first investment round from two lead investors and 23 total.

Nftfi has a wide selection of NFTs and an assortment from a number of blue-chip digital collectible collections as well. For instance, there are ENS names, Unstoppable Domains, Axies, Doodles, Sanbox land, Otherdeeds, Hashmasks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC). Just recently the platform phased out its old smart contract (Nftfi V1) on April 4, 2022, and launched a new smart contract called Nftfi V2. According to the web portal, Chainsecurity and Halborn audited the platform’s V2 smart contract.

What do you think about people lending out their NFTs for collateral to acquire a loan? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Aave Launches Social Media Project Lens Protocol With Over 50 Apps Built on Polygon

18/05/2022 by Idelto Editor

The blockchain firm Aave has launched the Lens Protocol, a social media project with applications built on the Polygon blockchain. Lens is similar to the social media platform Twitter but Lens profiles are linked to a non-fungible token (NFT) that can be ported into decentralized applications.

Lens Protocol Is Live – Aave Founder Believes People Are ‘Ready for a Better Social Media Experience’

On Wednesday, the blockchain company Aave announced that the Lens Protocol is now live and roughly 50 applications have debuted on the platform. Aave first revealed the Lens Protocol during the first week of February 2022 and the first applications are built on top of the Polygon network.

Stani Kulechov, CEO and founder of Aave Companies said the recent Twitter ordeal with Elon Musk shows that people are looking for something different than the incumbent social media platforms. “The social media experience has remained relatively unchanged for the last decade, and much of that is due to your content being solely owned by a company, which locks your social network within one platform,” Kulechov said in a statement sent to Bitcoin.com News.

The Aave founder added:

But ultimately, as seen from Elon Musk’s bid to purchase Twitter, people are ready for a better experience than what they’re used to. Ownership over not only the content you create online, but also your profile and social network is long overdue, and empowering users is what Lens aims to achieve.

Lens Boasts 50+ Social Applications and Creator Monetization Tools Built on Polygon

The 50 applications built on Lens covers social applications to creator monetization tools, the announcement notes. Lens users that have already minted their NFT profile can access any of the applications such as Peerstream, Lenster, Swapify, Spamdao, and more. “Building a Web3 social media platform on Lens Protocol has opened up a new realm of possibilities for our development team and users,” @yoginth.eth the founder of lenster.xyz remarked during the announcement.

Lens Protocol will provide users with the foundations to leverage full ownership over their “profile, content, and relationships” while plugging into any decentralized application. G.Money, the NFT filmmaker and creator, detailed that lens will empower the platform’s userbase. “An open social graph will allow creators and brands to fully own content distribution and their audiences in a truly multi-platform way. Lens empowers platform choice and opens up wider audiences through direct creator/brand-community relationships,” the NFT filmmaker said.

What do you think about Aave’s Lens Protocol? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Russia’s First Digital Financial Assets Expected This Year, Lawmaker Says

18/05/2022 by Idelto Editor

The first digital financial assets based on Russian blockchains may be issued as early as this year, a high-ranking parliamentarian announced. Three platforms are already registered as issuers, said Anatoly Aksakov, who chairs the Financial Market Committee at the State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament.

Russian Digital Financial Assets Likely to Appear by Year’s End

Authorized Russian blockchain platforms may issue their first digital financial assets (DFAs) by the end of 2022, according to the head of the parliamentary committee overseeing Russia’s financial sector, Anatoly Aksakov.

Speaking during the Moscow Academic Economic Forum, Aksakov noted that Russia is now actively working in this field after adopting the law “On Digital Financial Assets,” which went into force in January 2021. DFA is the legal term that encompasses cryptocurrencies in the current Russian legislation.

The Russian deputy revealed that three platforms — developed by a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel, Transmashholding, and Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank — are already registered as DFA issuers. Another two will be approved in the near future. Aksakov was quoted by Russian media as stating:

We expect that, maybe even this year, the first digital financial assets will be issued, and they will gradually become the basis for financial settlements on the blockchain.

The lawmaker believes that these DFAs will be used for financial settlements and as units of account in economic relations with partners and subsidiaries. “This is, to a certain extent, an alternative to those financial settlements that today exist on the basis of the dollar or the euro or other currencies,” he elaborated.

Anatoly Aksakov emphasized that the Russian government supports the legalization of the digital assets market through strict regulation and has prepared a new bill to achieve that. He was referring to the law “On Digital Currency” drafted by the Ministry of Finance, which is yet to be submitted to the State Duma.

Russia has been stepping up efforts to adopt rules for its digital assets space and this bill should expand the legal framework for the sector, which was only partially regulated with the law “On Digital Financial Assets.” While the finance ministry favors regulating cryptocurrencies along with other digital assets, the Central Bank of Russia remains opposed to their legalization in the country.

Do you expect Russian companies to employ DFAs for settlements with foreign partners? Tell us in the comments section below.