By Muskaan Sethi and Jayesh Singh
gm guys!
Markets were less than predictable this week as the largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin fell 2% and Ethereum rose 3.5%. Amid the top 30, Avalanche had the worst week as it fell by nearly 10%.
Let’s walk through the stories of this week.
This week in the cryptic land🤔
a16z taking the evil out of legality😇
What’s poppin’ - One of the biggest selling points for NFT projects has been the ability of its holders to commercialize their avatars to create and sell derivative artwork. Think apparel, music albums, and even BAYC-themed fast food restaurants.
But, there is a degree of ambiguity and legal risk across the NFT ecosystem. With muddled legal language around Intellectual Property (IP) licenses, the holders are always at a risk of being misled.
Andreesen Horowitz has announced the release of ‘Can’t Be Evil’ NFT licensing terms. These can be freely used by project creators. They provide a range of approaches for NFT projects, ranging from limited personal use to broader licenses that let anyone use the artwork for any purpose—even if they don’t own an NFT.
Bottomline - These licenses can be a huge step to remove ambiguity, minimize confusion around IP rights grants, and perhaps avoid future legal troubles. Also, the ease of accessibility would make for easier NFT adoption.
Crossposting NFTs, by Meta🖼️
To improve the user experience, Meta will allow users to show digital collectables (NFTs) on Facebook and Instagram by simply connecting to their wallets. Cross-posting NFTs across FB and IG will be a step towards interoperability in the metaverse. Currently, Meta will support Flow, Polygon, and Ethereum NFTs.
Also, the NFT owner will be immediately recognised and tagged at no additional cost.
Argentina embraces stablecoins🪙
Argentina’s Mendoza province has legalised the use of stablecoins for paying taxes. The users can use their crypto wallets to scan a QR code on the Tax Administration’s website. The stablecoins will then be converted into pesos and give payers a notification after the process is concluded.
How’s India holdin’ up?
Buidl for the hackathon⚒️
The worldwide hackathon known as BUIDL for Web3 Hack 2022 has been launched by Lumos Labs. Boasting prizes worth $100,000, the hackathon will provide participants with an opportunity to build on chains of their choice and acquire grants from the sponsors by showcasing their solutions for specific use cases. Solutions from NFTs, DeFi, and many more disciplines will be eligible for the two-month event.
India is flying high, but there’s a glass ceiling🌞
India became the 7th largest economy in the world in regard to the population's ownership of digital currencies. According to the UN, 7.3% of Indians possess cryptocurrencies.
India continues to be a strong market for cryptocurrencies, despite the usual political turmoil. It will be interesting to see how things unfold moving forward.
What else are we nibbling on?
Cardano’s Vasil hard fork (the latest update that Cardano is set to receive) will occur on September 22, 2022, just a week after Ethereum’s merge date.
Helium has sunk by 15% following a proposal to switch from its own blockchain to Solana. Read more over here.
The Tron network’s annual electricity consumption is equivalent to that of just 15 U.S. households, according to a report prepared by the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute.
Tweet of the week
The data from an AngelList report is representative of the VC winter that the industry has faced. With both pre-seed and seed rounds down ~90%, the startups globally are struggling to survive.
That’s it for this week folks. We’ll see you next week with more interesting content. We’ve also been revamping our structure, so, you can expect to enjoy richer content in the forthcoming weeks.👋