The Web3 Summer Slump Continues?

Hola Dispatchers

It certainly has been a mixed bag of events this week in the #Web3 universe.

Our crypto golden boy Sam heads back to the slammer, #opensea ditches royalties, #BTC takes a tumble, #Payapal bans crypto in the UK, #Singapore launches stablecoin laws, #Shibarium graces the world with its presence and so much more...

A summer slump indeed........

The BTC Drop

Picture this: On a starry night ??, around 9:35 pm UTC on Aug. 18, #Bitcoin decided to play an 8% nosedive game in just 10 minutes, leaving the entire crypto community puzzled.

And like clockwork, the theories started coming out from the woodworks of the #Twitter world, oops we mean X world ??

From Elon Musk's SpaceX shaking things up to a Chinese property giant's bankruptcy, and whispers of interest rate hikes, it's been a whirlwind of theories behind Bitcoin's recent price rollercoaster!

Josh Gilbert from #EToro floated a tantalizing theory, where he pointed at a report stating that SpaceX might have waved goodbye to its Bitcoin stash, which sat at a whopping $373 million!

But wait, there's more... Another factor sparking discussion is the broader market's anticipation of future interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

A sudden shift in sentiment across the financial landscape could have led to this sharp price drop in the #crypto realm.

Enter Tina Teng, the market analyst from CMC Markets, whose theory focuses on government bond yields as a potential trigger. When these yields surge, liquidity tends to shrink across the wider market, which could be the driving force behind Bitcoin's recent plunge.

The other theory revolves around the ongoing bankruptcy saga of China's property giant Evergrande has also raised eyebrows.

However, Tina suggests that while this might have cast a shadow over investor sentiment towards the #Chinese economy, it might not be the central reason for Bitcoin's price dip.

Crazy right?

Now these were only some of the theories we rounded up today, there could be more on the horizon but it's clear to say that what happened today was a collective "What the hell just happened?" moment for the crypto community.

Bye bye bye ... Royalties

Starting August 31st, the curtain will optionally fall on the Operator Filter, which is OpenSea's on-chain royalty enforcer.

The tool, introduced in November 2022, was like a "magical code snippet" aimed to ensure #NFT sales only happened on platforms honouring creator royalties.

But, here's the twist, the magic didn't really work.

The NFT community didn't quite give this script the standing ovation it aimed for. Some crafty marketplaces like Blur, Dew, and LooksRare gracefully pirouetted around the filter using the Seaport Protocol, which slipped past OpenSea's royalty radar.

Royalties were once a key part of NFTs, ensuring artists’ ongoing income from their creations.

Yet, the notion of royalties sparked a debate within the crypto community, especially after token-based platform X2Y2 experimented with 0% creator royalty fees in February 2022.

OpenSea had been a strong advocate for creator royalty enforcement, initially implementing royalties of up to 10%.

However, tensions arose in February when OpenSea engaged with NFT platform Blur, which enforced a 0.5% creator royalty fee. Which consequently made OpenSea adjust its own royalties.

& as of July 5 this year, NFT royalties had reached their lowest levels in two years.

OpenSea’s decision to make creator fees optional for new collections marks a significant shift in its approach to royalties, reflecting the ongoing evolution and exploration of revenue models within the NFT space.

The move away from mandatory royalties signifies the market’s attempt to find a balanced approach that benefits both creators and buyers while accommodating the diverse needs and preferences of participants in the #NFT ecosystem.

Sam heads back to the slammer

So to no one's surprise ??, federal judge Kalpan revoked SBF’s bail after he broke a lot of his agreed conditions while under house arrest.

Wondering what rules he broke?

Well, as SBF was living a comfortable lifestyle in his $4M family home in California, he cleverly made use of his time by trying to contact case witnesses and tamper with them.

Not just once, but twice.

He also tried to contact the press 1,000 times out of which he allegedly called them 100 times just so that he could manipulate the narrative.

You know, to say his side of the story!

But the final reason why his bail was revoked was because he had leaked his ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison’s private diaries to the New York Times, he had called the NYT reporter about 100 times just so that he could leak the diary.

And if you didn't know already this is known as witness tampering.

Caroline is a key witness who would be testifying against SBF. So leaking anything personal to the witness can be an attempt to hurt, discredit or frighten the subject.

After the ruling, SBF was put in handcuffs and taken out of the courtroom. As of now, he is in jail, but not for too long, he’ll be out on October 2nd for his court trial.

All we can say for now is that this is going to be looooong drawn out battle, which we will ultimately all catch up with on Netflix ??

Make America Crypto Again?

T'was the year 2019, when little old Donnie was against cryptocurrencies and wasn’t particularly a fan...

...but as of today, there’s news about him having around $500K worth of crypto in his Ethereum wallet.

How you ask? well,

Last year, Trump released his own NFT collection of him in different costumes and poses and they did really well (sold out well in fact!). Then in April, we saw a second version of the collection, and that once again sold out very quickly.

So his estimated earnings here are between $500K and $1M.

Some further blockchain sleuthing revealed that Trump was holding about $2.8M in his wallet back in August and apparently earned about $4.87M just from the licensing fees from his NFT project.

A tweet by Arkham on Wednesday alleges to have supposedly found Donald Trump’s wallet.

0x94845333028B1204Fbe14E1278Fd4Adde46B22ce

The amount of money in the wallet is around $2.8M.

Most of the money is in ETH, but there are small amounts of MATIC, wETH and USDC which can be seen.

Well, the elections in 2024 will be extremely interesting to see,

will Trump win? who knows?

But the main question is that if he does, what does the future of cryptocurrency look like?

PayPal bids the UK a temporary adieu

Mixed news for UK citizens this week, as PayPal has announced that it will be pausing its cryptocurrency service in the UK temporarily.?

This means that by October 1st, 2023, PayPal customers in the UK will no longer be able to buy or send cryptocurrencies on the fintech platform.?

This is because the fintech giant is working to ensure it follows the strict new regulations imposed by the UK government concerning rising Crypto scams.

However, customers holding cryptocurrency in their PayPal wallet can still keep it safely in their wallet or sell their Crypto whenever they want.

As per PayPal's email and Twitter (X) communications, it said that its cryptocurrency pause in the UK is to comply with the new regulatory requirements by the UK government.

This pause comes days before the Financial Conduct Authority’s new legislation will be enacted on Oct. 8.?

The new Crypto regulatory policy allows investors to leave any pending crypto investments within a set timeframe while also ensuring clear risk warnings. Advertisements of such investments will also be checked to ensure they aren’t misleading investors.

According to Sheldon Mills, the FCA’s executive director of consumers and competition, she said that It is up to people to decide whether they buy crypto or not.

Still, research conducted by the organization shows many investors regret making a hasty decision when investing in a failed crypto project.

PayPal aims to offer its crypto services again to its UK customers by early 2024.

However, despite pausing its UK crypto services, PayPal is still making significant progress in its crypto services in the US.?

Early this month, the fintech giant launched the #PYUSD, which is PayPal stablecoin, issued by Paxos Trust Co.

Also, #Ledger, the hardware wallet, will be teaming up with PayPal to allow its customers to use their active PayPal accounts to buy specific cryptos on the Ledger Live app.

& Finally, Say hello to Ether Future ETFs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has now approved ETFs based on Ether Futures. Many firms have already applied to get their hands on this new ETF that holds derivative contracts of ether instead of the contract being tied to the ether itself.

The price of ETH went up by 11% to $1,700 just 20 minutes after the news came out.

Insane right?

Well, that's all from us this week friends!

We hope that we will get out of this summer slump for an exciting thriving web3 fall.

Till then, adios ??

Team DIFX

About DIFX

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