GM degens 🤹 Hang on, it is almost Friday!
If you think that this is a clickbait title, then probably you might be right. Although, that is not the intention (fully..). Before we dive deep into that, let’s see what we have on today’s newsletter.
Our lunch menu for today
🏪 Coinbase launches their NFT Marketplace
🚨FYI: JPEG are not stored in blockchain, only their metadata
🧩ApeCoin went up roughly 40% yesterday. Here are the reasons why that happened
🗞️ Other news in the space
🏪Coinbase launches their NFT Marketplace (beta version)
After a long wait, Coinbase finally launches their beta version of NFT marketplace to a limited number of people who were in higher ranks of their waitlist. Here is the link for their marketplace. If you tried connecting your wallet and you are not part of the waitlist then you will have to wait a little longer in order to test it out. I went inside their marketplace just to get a feeling on how it looks and how it works overall in comparison to other marketplaces.
Their approach is a bit different, and I believe that is in purpose. Their main goal, just like they did with their wallet, is to make it simple and easy to use for everyone. They built the NFT marketplace with the same concept in mind, which does not necessarily fulfills the criteria to be a leader or a serious competitor for OpenSea as of now (just my opinion after all). However, it still has its own merits with some of the features they have included.
In terms of functionality, I think there is a need to add a lot more filters options, just like OpenSea does besides the basic sale type and price sort optionality.
Some of the benefits of Coinbase marketplace include:
- 0% Coinbase fees for a limited time
- Ability to buy with a credit card
- The ability to connect with other NFT holders within the marketplace (build followers base just like in Twitter)
- Ability to comment under each NFT (maybe negotiating a deal).
It is more like a social media platform with NFT functionality.
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🚨FYI: JPEG are not stored in blockchain, only their metadata
I know, this might hurt your feelings. Everyone talks on how amazing it is, how the NFT you own is yours forever and you get to keep it no matter what happens with the team who founded the project. Only metadata of the NFT you own is stored in blockchain, not the actual digital art itself. It is simply a link to a digital art which is hosted on a conventional server.
The reason for that is simply because it is extremely expensive to store an image in blockchain. Eric Khun explains this very well in one of his blog posts.
Here are some of the analysis he did which are applicable even today and pretty much at the same levels they were when this post was originally posted back in Oct 2021.
Most of NFT projects nowadays use IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) as a type of “decentralized” server, although clearly the art is not saved on the Ethereum blockchain itself. According to their official site:
“The InterPlanetary File System is a protocol and peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing data in a distributed file system. IPFS uses content-addressing to uniquely identify each file in a global namespace connecting all computing devices.”
If you want to learn more about IPFS and how they store their data, read the official documentation.
🧩ApeCoin went up roughly 40% yesterday. Here are the reasons why that happened
ApeCoin is the crypto token affiliated with BAYC. It went up almost 40% on rumors that they might start selling digital land for the anticipated Otherside metaverse project. Here is the link for the trailer in case you have not seen it yet.
Also, one of the community members of BAYC shared some alpha news related to that, although not officially confirmed by YugaLabs. Will see how it plays out in the end.
According to the tweet above, DA for their land will start at 600 $APE, which would be approximately 10k USD. Also, another thing worth mentioning is that ApeCoin surpassed Decentraland, Sandbox as well as Axie Infinity in market cap. That’s huge.
