The R Roundup: Facebook Tests NFT Profile Pictures — Issue #43
With the growth and distribution of crypto spreading far and wide, Facebook recently changed their name to Meta expressing the movement spreading to social media platforms.
Many expected the company's name change to be an indication for them to explore the “Metaverse” and crypto as a whole. This week, Facebook, the social media network, started rolling out NFTs for a select number of US content creators.
NFTs have been the dominating crypto in terms of adoption and the latest to emphasise that is Facebook using Ethereum and Polygon NFTs to add support for Solana and Flow chains too.
Users will have the ability to showcase their JPEGs through the provision of a ‘digital collectables’ tab on their profiles where they can connect their wallets to allow access to the NFTs.
Previously the company had expressed its intentions to launch NFTs on Instagram which shows their belief in Web3 extends to more than just one of their products.
Grayscale VS SEC👨⚖️
The SEC has been an infamous contributor to the role in which regulations have to play in the markets and for once, someone seems to have flipped the script on the SEC.
After reports breaking last Wednesday of the SEC rejecting Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF (exchange-traded fund) application, Grayscale filled a lawsuit against the SEC just less than an hour after they denied their application. Grayscale was asking to convert their flagship Bitcoin trust product to an ETF which was denied due to concerns about market manipulation and the role of tether in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
While only a handful of Bitcoin futures ETFs have been approved, Grayscale CEO Micheal Sonnenshein claimed in the following statement:
“Grayscale supports and believes in the SEC’s mandate to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets and facilitate capital formation — and we are deeply disappointed by and vehemently disagree with the SEC’s decision to continue to deny spot bitcoin ETFs from coming to the U.S. market,”
The concern of Grayscale is that the SEC has allowed products in a similar vein like futures ETFs to be approved and already trading however are placing a block on spot ETFs.
MakerDAO Wants Decentralisation 🗳
2022 is a year that has so far tested crypto investors' beliefs to the maximum. With the collapse of the multi-billion dollar Terra ecosystem, many began to lose faith in the concept of decentralisation and defi as a whole due to issues with collateralised loans and other products that lead to ultimate capitulations and liquidations.
MakerDAO which is the lending protocol behind the popular stablecoin $DAI had recently held a DAO vote where the members rejected a series of proposals that would lead to a more centralised governance model.
The proposal included the introduction of a model that would reorganise the leadership of the DAOO into a more traditional corporation with a board of directors to make the DAO more efficient and more capable of making “high-level decisions”.
In what seems like a major win for decentralisation, MakerDAO also noted that this was the largest amount of governance voting activity to date.
OpenSea Suffers Data Breach 📧
Often cyber security and blockchain security is touted as the responsibility of the investor but, what do you do when the most reputable NFT marketplace confirms they were on the receiving end of a data breach?
Opensea which has been in the spotlight amid reports of insider trading has since announced to its users that they should be on alert as they had experienced a massive data leak.
The NFT marketplace stated that an employee of their email vendor went rouge and shared email addresses with an unauthorised party.
While they have claimed to have contacted law and enforcement officials about the breach, the best advice they gave was that hackers may attempt to use scam domains and users should be “extra cautious” about email safety.
Avid users of Opensea have announced that since the data breach they have seen an increase in phishing attempts.
EU Conclude Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Agreement🇪🇺
As previously cited the regulators have intensified their frameworks ever since the market has given them legs to stand on with Three Arrows Capital going bankrupt, Celsius halting withdrawals and the Terra collapse. On many occasions these events are pointed at when concluding why regulatory pressure has accelerated.
The EU on Thursday struck a political agreement between the Parliament and Council on new rules surrounding crypto-assets. This would included that consumers would have better information regarding the risks, costs and charges in crypto including support for market integrity seeing more financial stability for crypto as a whole.
Negotiators have made it evident that MiCA will cover assets unregulated by existing services legislation.
They have disclosed that they will also have heavy focus on the disclosure of energy consumption of crypto.
For more information you can look at the official report published by the european parliament 👉 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220613IPR32840/cryptocurrencies-in-the-eu-deal-struck-between-parliament-and-council
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