#74 | Russia Officially Annouces Digital Ruble Currency???

Estimated Read Time: 8 minutes

Hey friends,

Glad to have you with us today! This edition, we explore more progressive blockchain news in our brew-up, along with some innovative NFT use cases from GQ Magazine before finishing off with the heated battle between OpenSea and Blur. Let's jump into it!

The Blockchain Brew Up 🫖

We were recently in a bit of red for the crypto market, but the last few days have shown promise with both Bitcoin and Ethereum up over 10% in the past week. Although it's always all just speculation, this new macro run could be tied to the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee meeting in March which foresees a second consecutive rate hike in an effort to combat inflation.

Blockchain analytics firm IntoTheBlock saying “While forecasts of higher rates weigh down on the values of future cash flows, increasing global liquidity is helping raise asset prices”.

In our last blockchain brew up, we covered the EU’s progressive launch of “Tokenise Europe 2025” in an effort to drive the adoption of blockchain technology, well a recent report from the European Parliamentary Research Service has doubled down on this with some bullish blockchain numbers.

The document estimates that the combined benefit of EU crypto and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT or another term for blockchain) would amass to $33 billion USD annually, but the real kicker is that figure only counts the efficiency savings of a blockchain infrastructure, so not even including the potential gains from innovation. Although the text outlined a wide range of risks, this undeniable improvement in workflow efficiency certainly shows the promise and opportunity that blockchain technology has for our modern industries.

In some other blockchain news from the northern hemisphere, Russia has officially confirmed its national currency — the ruble — will get a digital pilot starting in April. According to Olga Skorobogatova, the First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia, the country will pilot digital ruble transactions with real consumers through a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), saying “we are planning to launch the digital ruble project into a pilot stage from April 1 at the beginning with operations – transfers between individuals and payments in trade and service enterprises”.

The end of 2022 saw Russian legislation that gave central banks authority to issue a CBDC with responsibility over issuance, fees and remuneration for all participants, but the actual April go-ahead is a critical milestone for the future of blockchain and digital currencies.

Steaming Headlines ♨️

GQ Magazine Launches Utility NFT

You may be familiar with GQ (Gentlemen's Quarterly) magazine or you may not, but they are an industry leader in men's fashion magazines and read in the millions covering to quote "style, culture, and beyond". In yet another story of legacy brands embracing the opportunity of our new technology, GQ has just announced its first NFT collection. GQ's serious take on NFTs truly encompasses Web3 with not only one-of-a-kind art pieces, but real-world utility that grants holders access to the magazine subscription, merchandise, live events, community and more.

Officially titled "GQ3 Issue 001: Change Is Good", these NFTs are generatively created through 100 unique traits that were designed and specially combined by artists Chuck Anderson, REO, Kelsey Niziolek and Serwah Attafuah. The 1,661 NFTs go up for mint on March 8th for a modest 0.1957 ETH (a nod to GQ's founding year), but it's not just an expensive digital art piece you're getting — because each holder gets a magazine subscription and access to additional IRL rewards. These include a curated GQ box of editor-recommended products, exclusive merchandise, and a ticket to the new GQ3 community party that will be going down in April. Its this new GQ3 community that has also been getting emphasized, where as well as the expected holder-only discord for "like-minded creators", you will also connect to the GQ team and have "input" on future GQ projects and early guaranteed access to future GQ3 drops.

We won't cover every brand and their dog's new NFT projects, but GQ's implementation exemplifies the heart of NFT technology and its ability to revolutionize multiple aspects of our modern culture through new subscription models, real-world utility, curated communities and all with a dash of finite digital art on top, an excellent use case that we hope many more brands start to adopt as everyone inevitably transitions to Web3.

OpenSea Implements 0% Fees

It would be hard-pressed not to cover the battle currently happening between the two top NFT marketplaces OpenSea and newcomer Blur, with the latest frontline news having OpenSea drop to 0% fees as well as implementing optional creator earnings. OpenSea has been the king of the castle as the dominating NFT marketplace where last year they accounted for 73.1% of the total market, however, underdog Blur rapidly ran up the charts to be 10th in NFT volume for 2022 despite it only being launched in October and barely having 3 months worth of volume. Blurs premium features like faster sweeps, sniping tools, and questionable removal of creator royalties have kept up their momentum to the point of the latest critical milestone where on Feb 18th Blur surpassed OpenSea in daily Ethereum trading volume.

This dethroning quickly forced a reactionary measure from OpenSea when they tweeted: https://twitter.com/opensea/status/1626682043655507969?s=20&t=Ce7radqlwp6KeKyEibQy7g

Re-sparking a long-winded debate about creators and their right to perpetual royalties, if your having deja vu it's because this was all first hashed out in November when OpenSea introduced optional royalties but backtracked the decision due to community backlash. It seems Blur's fierce competition and bite out of marketplace volume has proven too much for OpenSea, and it has been fierce with Blur implementing tactics like enforcing full royalties on collections that block OpenSea, and their aggressive $BLUR airdrops totalling more than $400 million given to users of the platform.

This royalty war is no doubt a touchy subject when it comes to creator's livelihoods, but we can take solace in the importance that competition has in the industry. If it wasn't for challengers like Blur then bigger players like OpenSea would invertibility increase their fee structure in turn hurting us all, but it also forces innovation like the new premium features of Blur that are another benefit to the end consumer. Competition is always better in the long run, and it will be an exciting time to see how this heated OpenSea v Blur battle plays out.

Huge thanks for joining us today, we hope you have a great couple of days while we curate the next edition of steaming headlines, take care!

What's the NFTea? 🍵

Let's talk about wolf skulls. Specifically, today we're taking a look at how to draw them.

Oh wait, does that look familiar to you? Hmm... where have I seen that before...

Yowza. Backlash to this discovery has been swift; to be honest, this is low-hanging fruit for engagement farming and copium. Several influencers have used this as content to white knight for artists and bring up the subject of copyright infringement on the part of Yuga Labs.

However, my favorite take on this whole situation has to be this:

Maybe we're making a bigger deal out of this than it should be.

Have a great week, everyone.

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DISCLAIMER:

None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.