Friday, 24th of June. As the week comes to an end, we can focus on the highlights of the crypto industry over the past few days.
Fed Chairman paying close attention to what is happening in the crypto market
Representatives of the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) are eyeing cryptocurrencies against the backdrop of increased volatility in the market. Jerome Powell, the head of the agency, said so.
According to him, the Fed does not yet see anything remarkable regarding the bitcoin market in terms of its impact on the macroeconomy.
Still, Powell believes that the crypto industry lacks a better “regulatory framework for cryptocurrency”.
“…A lot of the digital finance products, in some ways, are quite similar to products that have existed in the banking system or the capital markets but they’re just not regulated the same way. So we need to do that.”
As you may remember, the Fed raised its key rate by 75 basis points at once, to the level of 1.5-1.75% at the end of its meeting on June 14-15.
Days after that, the Bitcoin price drastically collapsed, but later regained its footing a little.
Analysts at Arcane Research speculate that the cost of bitcoin is expected to drop further to as low as $10,350.
Shopify to push the boundaries of NFT
Shopify’s e-commerce platform will introduce new opportunities for merchants to engage with loyal customers through NFT. This is reported by The Block.
Users would be able to link crypto wallets to online stores across the platform as a way to validate their holdings of certain tokens. With this opportunity, they will be given access to pre-sales and high-end merchandise in the near future.
The feature was beta-tested earlier by eligible merchants.
Over the past year, the company opened the door for a narrow range of merchants to sell NFTs directly, with no third parties involved.
eBay takes over KnownOrigin NFT marketplace
EBay, the U.S. online marketplace, has acquired a U.K.-based KnownOrigin. Neither the exact details nor the amount of the deal were made public.
“During our meetings they impressed us with their enthusiasm to learn, embrace and immerse themselves into Web3… We believe that NFTs are rapidly becoming the future of the creative industry and with our technical innovation combined with ebay’s brand and community this gives us an exciting opportunity to play a meaningful and lasting role in the evolution of this space,” KnownOrigin stated.
An agreement was signed by the parties on June 21.
Back in the spring of 2021, eBay authorized users to trade NFTs. Prior to that, Jamie Iannone, CEO of the firm, said that the marketplace is mulling over the option of accepting payments in crypto.
In May of this year, eBay rolled out a collection of non-fungible tokens as part of a partnership with OneOf platform.
It should be mentioned that on June 21, Uniswap Labs announced the purchase of Genie, an NFT marketplace aggregator.
Magic Eden, formerly a Solana-based NFT marketplace, raised $130M through Electric Capital and Greylock Partners.
BAYC blamed for the use of alt-right symbols
Philion, a well-known youtuber, posted an investigation in which he accused the creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club of using racist symbols and pro-white supremacists.
Philip Rusnack known as Philion claims that the video ended up being the result of research, involving art and cyberculture experts, among others. He devoted “hundreds of hours” to make it.
What prompted an exploration of the story was a post by digital artist Ryder Ripps, who likened it to what happened in January 2022. To do so, the latter posted content on a specially acquired domain, resembling the alias of the Yuga Labs co-founder.
As per Philion, BAYC is “one massive alt-right inside joke” that employs language, characters, and memes from the 4chan, an anonymous imageboard website.
He says BAYC’s NFT images contain racist caricatures of people of color and Asians, while the symbolism and language they use “are similar to those used by the Nazis.” Namely, supporters of this theory can see similarities between the logo of BAYC and the Totenkopf, the blogger believes.
What he pointed out was that both depicted 18 teeth [a figure associated with Adolf Hitler]. The researcher also drew comparisons with the date of the death of the founder of Nazism and the placement of BYAC – both events, along with the launch of the Otherside metaverse, took place on April 30.
The blogger found some references to the phrase on the Buchenwald gate, the “ciphers and codes” of the modern ultranationalists, and the alleged “non-randomness” of the nicknames chosen by the BAYC founders.
Philion appealed to viewers to exert pressure on BAYC owners to burn the tokens they held.
“I want every celebrity actor, athlete and influencer to burn their fucking ape,” the creator of the video declared.
Following Ryder Ripps’ allegations, the Yuga Labs team explained that the image of monkeys was used by many as an image of themselves and those who invest heavily in non-DYOR cryptoprojects. The skull in the picture represented that they were “bored to death”.
A month later, extremism expert Mark Pitcavage said there was no connection between the BAYC logo and the Totenkopf because “all skulls resemble each other to a certain degree.”