NFT marketplace
SuperRare cuts 30% of staff as growth slows during crypto winter
Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace SuperRare has announced a 30% staff-member cut as CEO John Crain explained that the firm mistakenly over-hired during the last bull market. In a Jan. 7 tweet, Crain shared a screenshot of his message to SuperRare’s Slack channel announcing the 30% cut, stating that he had “some tough news to share.” “Startups are a balancing act of managing rapid growth while doing everything possible to conserve limited resources. During the recent bull run, we grew in tandem with the market” he noted, adding that: “In recent months it’s become clear that this aggressive growth was unsustainable: we over-hired, and I take full ownership of this mistake.” I have some tough news to share: pic.twitter.com/iLDKqgyhQa — SuperRare John (@SuperRareJohn) January 6, 2023 Crain ...
Nifty News: GameStop NFT market goes live, Hong Kong’s NFT concept and more
The nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace for American video game retailer GameStop has officially gone live on Ethereum layer-2 blockchain ImmutableX, all part of the latest Web3 push from the gaming retailer. The pair first partnered in February to build the marketplace offering a $100 million grant for NFT content creators and tech developers before a public beta of the NFT marketplace debuted in July. With the Oct. 31 announcement of the full launch, GameStop’s market will allow for popular Web3 games on ImmutableX such as the role-playing game Illuvium and Gods Unchained to be accessed by users. GameStop has worked to launch a series of Web3-powered products over the past year, with a beta self-custody crypto wallet released in May that integrates with its NFT marketplace. In Marc...
Nifty News: LooksRare the latest NFT market to sack royalties, Twitter’s tweeting tiles and more
Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace LooksRare is the latest in a string of NFT markets to do away with enforcing creator royalties by default, following the likes of Magic Eden and X2Y2. The platform tweeted on Oct. 27 that it would not be supporting creator royalties by default, instead choosing to share 25% of its protocol fees with NFT creators and collection owners. Buyers can still choose to pay royalties when purchasing an NFT but it will be on an opt-in basis. Explaining the changes, it said 0.5% of its 2% protocol fee would go to collections, as long as that collection has a receiving address for the funds. LooksRare said the willingness of buyers to pay royalties has “eroded” as a result of many NFT markets now moving to a zero-royalty model adding that these disadvantage cre...
‘Grotesquely overpriced’ — Apple’s App Store wants 30% cut on NFT sales
Non-fungible token (NFT) app developers and others have balked at a decision by tech giant Apple to impose a 30% commission on NFTs sold through apps on its marketplace, effectively putting NFT purchases in the same boat as regular in-app purchases. According to a Friday report from The Information, the smartphone company is now allowing NFTs to be bought and sold through apps listed on its marketplace but imposes its standard commission on in-app purchases of 30% — similar to that imposed by Android’s app store Google Play. The commission rate has however been slammed by some for being “grotesquely overpriced” — particularly when compared to standard NFT marketplace commissions, which are around 2.5%. Tech blogger Florian Mueller called Apple’s “app tax” on NFT sales “abusive but consiste...
DeFi platform sees strong interest in halal-approved crypto products
Australian-based crypto platform Marhaba DeFi says there has been a strong take-up of Halal-approved cryptocurrency products on its platform, with aims to release a suite of new products which align with Islamic law by the end of 2022. Launched in 2020, the platform is focused on adhering to the rules of “Islamic finance” which refers to how businesses and individuals raise capital in accordance with Sharia, or Islamic law. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Marhaba DeFi founder and CEO Naquib Mohammed said active users of their noncustodial multichain Sahal Wallet have grown to around 40,000 since its launch, stating: “People need a platform where they can trust every token they interact with, so we don’t have to go hunting on different platforms, tapping into different [Islamic] scholars or expe...
Reddit NFT avatars selling for a premium on OpenSea
Sales of recently launched Reddit blockchain-based avatars are rising on nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea, outperforming the platform’s proprietary store. Reddit, the “front page” of the internet, plugged into the burgeoning world of NFTs with the announcement of collectible avatars in July 2022. The avatars became available to users in August and are already generating thousands of dollars in sales for artists. Reddit users are able to purchase a variety of avatars for their profiles using Vault, Reddit’s cryptocurrency wallet, with credit and debit cards accepted to make payments for the blockchain-based NFTs. Reddit Avatars are created by a number of independent artists that use the platform and are minted on purchase on the Polygon blockchain. Given that OpenSea features cro...
Tumbleweeds blow through Coinbase NFT on its first day: Just $75K in volume
Coinbase, one of the largest crypto exchanges by volume, opened its beta non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace to the public on May 4 with on-chain data showing a maximum of 150 total transactions on the day and $75,000 in USD volume. The transactions captured by Dune Analytics show the total amount which took place through the 0x Protocol, the infrastructure behind Coinbase’s marketplace. Whilst not all transactions are guaranteed to be from Coinbase, since 0x announced its support for NFTs in January it has yet to announce any other partners apart from Coinbase. Number of market transactions on the 0x Protocol. Dune Analytics. The number pales into insignificance compared to expectations arising from the marketplace’s waitlist. More than 8.4 million email addresses signed up for the...
How to convert your digital art into NFTs and sell it
What is an NFT? NFTs are nonfungible tokens. The adjective “nonfungible” is often used in economics to represent features such as uniqueness and non-interchangeability. In the crypto space, nonfungibility simply indicates that one item cannot be exchanged for another. A “token” as a unit of account is basically a certificate of validity stored on the decentralized blockchain, making digital assets traceable and accessible to everyone. As a result, NFTs are a one-of-a-kind virtual currency that can fall into pretty much any category and usually take the shape of paintings, videos, music, collectible items in video games or any other type of creative digital production. Since NFTs boomed in early 2021, everyone is now buying and selling these tokens throughout the world. But, how can someone...
NFT infrastructure startup Rarify raises $10M from Pantera Capital
NFT infrastructure startup Rarify has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Pantera Capital at a valuation of $100 million. The backing from Pantera Capital appears significant as the company is one of the top venture capital firms in crypto. One of Rarify’s primary offerings is an NFT-commerce-focused application programming interface (APIs) that enables firms to launch and integrate user-friendly marketplaces in their platforms. The API also allows minting and porting NFTs between different blockchains. Speaking with Forbes on March 3, Rarify co-founder Revas Tsivtsivadze stated that the company aims to simplify NFT buying and selling similarly to “how Square made it super easy to accept payments.” Tsivtsivadze highlighted the check-out process of marketplaces such as OpenSea, whic...
Associated Press to launch Polygon-based photography NFT platform
The Associated Press (AP) is launching a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace where collectors will be able to purchase tokenized photographs from the global news platform. The initial collection of NFTs will include photographs of subjects like space, climate, and war from AP photojournalists. They will be released over several weeks starting on Jan. 31 for varying prices, according to the marketplace’s website. The photographs will be minted as NFTs on the Ethereum layer-two scaling network, Polygon. The platform will support secondary transactions using debit or credit cards, and payments in Ethereum. The marketplace is being built by Xooa, a blockchain infrastructure platform specializing in building “white-label NFT marketplaces for brands and IP owners.” Head of marketplaces at Xooa, ...
