Author: Jeremy Ryan

NFT Monthly trading volume of NFTs in December broke an 8-month streak of declines in 2022, rising 13% from November to $549.5 million, according to The Block’s data dashboard. The increase is “most likely a combination of tax loss harvesting and a revitalization of popular narratives around some of the blue-chip PFP projects, most notably Yuga Labs, given their upcoming ‘Trial of Jimmy the Monkey’ event,” says Thomas Bialek from The Block Research. Despite the month-over-month increase, trading volumes are still just a fraction of what they were a year ago, with December of 2021 seeing around $2.8 billion of…

NFT Although Donald Trump’s non-fungible token (NFT) collection sold out in December, its suite of NFTs for sweepstakes winners are now flooding the market. According to data from NFT marketplace OpenSea, the same wallet that sold the original NFTs is minting tokens that serve as access passes to the sweepstakes prizes touted during the launch of the Trump Digital Trading Card collection. The tokens feature images of Trump holding a sign resembling a ticket, listing the prizes promoted during the original mint. These include a group zoom call, a gala dinner and a hardcover copy of his book “Our Journey…

This year is off to a friendly start as Art Blocks‘ free-to-mint Friendship Bracelets have reached the top spot on OpenSea. The 38,413-piece collection features images of friendship bracelets and has proven to be a hit with fans, recording the highest 24-hour trading volumes for January 10, 2023. The Art of FriendshipThe spike in volume for the Art Blocks Friendship Bracelets NFTs may be attributed to the recent closing of the minting window. These NFTs were available for anyone who already held one of the Art Blocks assets, who were able to mint a maximum of two free assets since October…

Blockchain The first successful experiment to launch a Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proof system in space occurred onboard the International Space Station (ISS) today, in a partnership between crypto-satellite developer Cryptosat and global hackathon organizer DoraHacks. The experiment performed onboard the ISS demonstrated the capacity of a satellite-based computation environment to perform part of the trusted setup process necessary to utilize a ZK proof protocol, DoraHacks and Cryptosat said. The success of the ZK proof experiment is an important step forward in proving the efficacy of space-bound computational environments, according to Cryptosat, which is seeking to launch a constellation of cubesats into…

NFT As the use cases for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) continues to expand, the Tribeca Film Festival is hopping on the trend by offering VIP passes as digital collectibles. The VIP passes mark the annual film festival’s first expansion into NFTs and were developed in partnership with crypto exchange OKX. Minted on Ethereum, they will provide perks like special access to film screenings and invitations to exclusive events with the festival’s co-founders Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro. The NFTs will cost $899 and are available for purchase directly through the Tribeca website using a credit card. More experienced NFT collectors…

Blockchain Holograph recently tweeted about going live on Avalanche, Polygon, and Ethereum mainnets. The platform makes developing multichain digital assets 10 times quicker, quicker, and easier. According to Holograph, the recent increase of execution environments in the form of rollups, sidechains, and layer 1s. It has provided elevated access to inexpensive blockchain space. Since the trend keeps growing, it can be assumed that several execution environments will emerge similar to tokens. However, if these environments did not have a clean way to collaborate, data and liquidity fragmentation would be an issue. It will ultimately lead to increased security risks, development…

Blockchain StarkWare has debuted another full node client for its scaling solution StarkNet called Papyrus, which is written in the Rust programming language. This will enable a more diverse set of implementations of the scaling solution, potentially bolstering security and decentralization. Papyrus will improve the project’s transaction throughput capabilities, the team announced on Wednesday. It joins Pathfinder as the second Rust-coded full-node client. StarkNet also has another full-node client called Juno that is being coded in Golang. The newly released node will help expand StarkNet’s performance and decentralization, the announcement stated. Papyrus will reportedly enhance the StarkNet Sequencer’s block production…

NFT GumBall Protocol has gone live on Arbitrum. The news was shared by GumBall Protocol on Twitter, adding that more information will be shared on the official Discord channel. Meanwhile, followers can retweet the announcement to claim one free LiquiCat, an NFT collection that is currently in the minting process. Followers have welcomed the update by calling it good news and sharing their excitement by replying so hyped. Arbitrum is leading the charge to offer the best Web3 experience. Projects are coming on board to leverage a suite of Ethereum scaling solutions. What makes its offerings the best in the…

Blockchain Decentralized storage network InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) has released a browser extension called “Pin Tweet to IPFS,” which allows users to archive tweets on its network. IPFS is a storage protocol and network designed to create a peer-to-peer method of storing and sharing files. It aims to replace the traditional, centralized model of the web with a decentralized one so that content can be distributed directly between devices, rather than being stored on a centralized server and accessed through a single point of failure. By using the new extension, users have an option to ensure that their tweets are…

Blockchain Ukraine, already receptive to crypto, has one more reason to be bullish on blockchain — thanks to Stellar. A Thursday report unpacking a two-year study on the feasibility of tapping the Stellar crypto ecosystem to move money around the war-torn country detailed a number of reasons for optimism when it comes to digital assets. One of Ukraine’s oldest and largest banks, TASCOMBANK, led the pilot behind the study. It came about at the 2021 bequest of several of the eastern European nation’s top financial regulators and legislators. And it’s especially relevant now, given Ukraine’s national bank has blocked local…