Monat: Februar 2023

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OpenSea implements limited-time 0% fees

  • OpenSea recently lost a huge user base to Blur.
  • People are flocking to Blur for greater returns on their NFT investments.
  • OpenSea has implemented a number of changes including bringing fees to zero to try and win back some of the customers.

Nansen data shows that NFT marketplace Blur has surpassed OpenSea in daily Ethereum (ETH) trading volume. Reports show that NFT investors are moving to Blur anticipating greater returns on their NFT investments.

OpenSea has maintained the top NFT marketplace position for some years as depicted in our NFT statistics and the sudden rise of the Blur marketplace has forced OpenSea to actualize some massive restructuring to get it back at the top. The restructuring involves three major changes.

OpenSea restructuring

OpenSea has announced three major changes which include a 0% fee that will last for a limited time, introducing leniency on some operations, and introducing optional creator earnings.

Blur’s success is highly attributed to its new loyalty policy which is quite different from that of OpenSea. Blur recently said:

“OpenSea’s current royalty policy prevents collections from being able to earn royalties everywhere. They have cited various reasons for this (see FAQ), but the end result is that creators are limited to earning royalties on only one platform at a time.”

The difference in loyalty policy between Blur and OpenSea is definitely good for the industry since if it wasn’t for zero royalty marketplaces, NFT marketplaces like OpenSea would eventually increase their fee structure and negatively affect creators.

OpenSea has admitted losing NFT investors to other “NFT marketplaces that don’t fully enforce creator earning,” and it believes introducing optional creator earnings will bring back a good number of these customers. Blur also recently rolled back its creator earnings and OpenSea may be trying to do the same.

Explaining its decision to restructure OpenSea tweeted saying:

“In October, we started to see meaningful volume and users move to NFT marketplaces that don’t fully enforce creator earnings. Today, that shift has accelerated dramatically despite our best efforts.”

While OpenSea’s creator earnings feature was aimed at helping creators secure the revenue generated from the resale of their work, it blocked recommendations of marketplaces with the same policies.

How long will OpenSea 0% fee last?

 OpenSea has not given a concrete timeline for the 0% fee. It plans to continue testing the fee model to identify what works best for its users.

However, community members anticipate that the marketplace will likely increase the platform fees in future once it successfully attracts back the lost customers.

The post OpenSea implements limited-time 0% fees appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Filecoin price: FIL spikes to 6-month high after FVM launch news

  • Filecoin (FIL) rallied amid news of an upcoming network development.
  • The FIL token saw its price reach highs of $7.89 on Coinbase.
  • According to a news release on Friday, Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) will launch on 1 March 2023.

Filecoin soared to its highest price level since 18 August 2022 on Friday, with a massive 26% rally on the day sending the native FIL token to highs of $7.89 on major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.

The gains for decentralised storage network come after a recovery that started with a 5% upside on Tuesday 14 February. Before that, a flip in market sentiment had pushed FIL/USD down nearly 13% on 9 February, with the token’s value dipping to close at $4.78. 

While it’s not possible to make a Filecoin price prediction with certainty, lets see what likely catalysed today’s stellar run.

What is behind Filecoin’s price surge today?

Filecoin price has indeed seen an enormous uptick in the past two days, breaking above key resistance around $6.00. 

Filecoin price reached a high of $7.89 on Coinbse. Source: TradingView

Per CoinGecko data, FIL has surged 55% in the past week and going by today’s 340% jump in 24-hour trading volume, there seems to have been some serious buying firepower behind the price surge.

The main trigger for today’s rally appears to have been news that the Filecoin Virtual Machine will go live on 1 March. 

Benefits of FVM to the Filecoin network

According to the Filecoin developer team, the launch of the FVM will usher in a new era for the Filecoin blockchain. 

Specifically, the layer-1 network will see a refined system featuring smart contracts and programmability. The FVM also comes with further scalability and much lower fees for users looking to interact with decentralised applications (dApps.)

Key use cases set to drive further traffic of the Filecoin blockchain and put it on the path to greater adoption are its perpetual storage, streamlined access to decentralised finance (DeFi) and DataDAOs. The Filecoin Virtual Machine is interoperable with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

The post Filecoin price: FIL spikes to 6-month high after FVM launch news appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Jump is the ‘US trading firm’ that made $1.28 billion off LUNA: report

  • Jump Crypto is reportedly the unidentified US trading firm” the SEC says helped re-peg TerraUSD in 2021.
  • Terraform Labs and its CEO Do Kwon misrepresented the human effort as a software algorithm.
  • Jump was able to buy Luna tokens at massive discounts leading to a profit of over $1.28 billion, though the SEC has filed a wrongdoing charge against the trading firm.

When the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Terraform Labs and its CEO Do Kwon, it pointed to an unnamed US-based trading firm as having realized massive profits from deals with Terra (LUNA).

Now sources say that firm is Jump Crypto, a Chicago-based subsidiary of Jump Trading, according to a report first shared by crypto publication The Block. Per the report, it is Jump Crypto that helped TerraUSD (UST) – an algorithmic stablecoin launched by Do Kwon – regain its peg in 2021.

Do Kwon’s Terra project collapsed in May 2022, while Jump had been providing market making services for Luna since 2019.

“Trading partner” made $1.28 billion after helping UST repeg

While the SEC did not bring any charges against Jump, sources say it is this company (one of the largest Terra whales at the time) that made over $1 billion from its LUNA trades. In particular, the trading firm secured a deal of a lifetime with Terraform Labs when it helped the de-pegging UST return to the $1.00 peg.

The SEC’s complaint relates to UST’s de-pegging in May 2021 – a year before it ultimately collapsed to zero. According to the charges, Kwon’s team secretly entered a deal with the US-based trading firm. The company ideally stepped in to buy LUNA at massive discounts, ultimately helping the stablecoin regain its dollar parity.

But Terra misled the public by presenting the re-pegging as a result of the stablecoin’s software algorithm, when in reality it was due to the efforts of a third party – essentially human effort.

Terraform then allowed the trading firm to buy LUNA tokens for as low as 40 cents at a time the tokens traded at $90 across the secondary market. According to the sources, it was a deal that saw the “identified” US trading partner make a cool $1.28 billion in profit.

Do Kwon is in hiding following the Terra collapse and the latest reports claim he is in Serbia. As CoinJournal highlighted on Friday, the Terraform Labs founder is reported to have cashed out over $100 million worth of Bitcoin through an account at a Swiss bank.

The post Jump is the ‘US trading firm’ that made $1.28 billion off LUNA: report appeared first on CoinJournal.

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CZ denies reports Binance plans to delist US-based tokens

  • The Binance CEO tweeted that the reports were false
  • However, he acknowledged the exchange had “pulled back” on some deals.
  • Binance has endured a lot of FUD over the past several months, particularly after the collapse of FTX.

Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao has denied reports that his exchange is looking to sever ties with US-based projects.

His comments followed an earlier report that cited familiar sources as saying Binance was planning to delist all US-based tokens. One of those to be delisted ostensibly being USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin issued by US-based financial services firm Circle.

But in a tweeted response to one of the reports, Zhao termed the report as “false.” He went on to suggest that this wouldn’t be the case given “blockchain has no borders.”

According to a Bloomberg report published on Friday, sources claimed Binance was looking to end relationships with its partners in the US, including banks. The crypto giant was also reassessing its venture investments in the country, the report added.

While acknowledging that Binance had indeed pulled back from some investment deals and takeover of bankrupt companies, Zhao noted this was just ‘for now.”

Zhao also linked to a previous tweet in which he says it is better to focus on education, compliance and product & service, and “ignore FUD, fake news, attacks, etc.” It’s notable that Binance has been subject to a lot of FUD over the past few months, with negative coverage heightening following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.

Today’s reports on Binance comes just days after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it was suing Paxos, the US-based issuer of the Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin. The regulator has labelled BUSD as an “unregistered security.” 

That on top of the New York Department of Financial Services ordering Paxos to stop minting the stablecoin, a scenario that saw the company end its relationship with Binance.

The post CZ denies reports Binance plans to delist US-based tokens appeared first on CoinJournal.