NFT News

Global financial advisory and asset management firm Devere Group released the results of its cryptocurrency survey on Monday. Devere found that 82 percent of millionaire clients with $1 million to $5 million in investable assets had sought advice on investing in cryptocurrencies.

Without providing further details, the asset manager wrote: “While the market has had a difficult year in 2022, over the past 12 months, eight out of 10 high-net-worth (HNW) individuals have invested in their of financial advisors ask about adding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to their investment portfolios.

Data from the blockchain data aggregation platform Dune Analytics shows that the trading volume of the NFT market OpenSea on the Polygon blockchain surpassed that of Ethereum for the second consecutive month. In December, the OpenSea market sold 1.3 million NFTs on the Polygon blockchain, 1 1.5 million NFTs per month. This compares to 0.995 million NFTs and 1.1 million NFTs sold on the Ethereum chain.

In addition, data shows that the TrumpDigital Trading Cards launched by Trump is OpenSea’s NFT project with the highest sales volume on the Polygon blockchain. The project sold 5,517 NFTs in January, for a transaction volume of 1,760 ETH (approximately $9.2 million).

Despite the recent strength in cryptocurrencies, 72% of traders said they have no plans to trade cryptocurrencies or digital assets in 2023, according to a JPMorgan survey. In 2022, only 25% of traders expressed such thoughts.

The survey was conducted in January after a dismal 2022 for cryptocurrencies, with bitcoin plunging nearly 70% last year. Only 8% of traders said they are currently trading cryptocurrencies, and 14% said they planned to do so within five years, the survey showed.

Meanwhile, 6% of respondents said they have no current plans to trade cryptocurrencies, but plan to buy or sell within 12 months. Entering 2023, although Bitcoin has soared by 39%, this does not seem to be able to attract more bets from Wall Street investors, especially considering that the Fed’s interest rate hike process has not yet ended.

According to news on February 1, Jeremy Goldman, a long-term copyright and intellectual property lawyer who has worked closely with multiple NFT projects, issued an article explaining whether Yuga Labs’ grant of IP licenses to holders is valid.

Goldman said that, first of all, Yuga Labs owns the copyright of BAYC, which automatically arises when an original work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression, including digital art stored in computer memory, whether it is administratively registered or not.

Secondly, Yuga Labs owns the copyright of digital artworks related to BAYC NFT, and has the right to grant BAYC NFT holders ownership of digital artworks and licenses to use artworks for commercial and other purposes.

According to news on February 1, Jeremy Goldman, a long-term copyright and intellectual property lawyer who has worked closely with multiple NFT projects, issued an article explaining whether Yuga Labs’ grant of IP licenses to holders is valid.

Goldman said that, first of all, Yuga Labs owns the copyright of BAYC, which automatically arises when an original work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression, including digital art stored in computer memory, whether it is administratively registered or not.

Secondly, Yuga Labs owns the copyright of digital artworks related to BAYC NFT, and has the right to grant BAYC NFT holders ownership of digital artworks and licenses to use artworks for commercial and other purposes.

While falling cryptocurrency prices and FUD following the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX put pressure on Silvergate Capital, some financial institutions appear to be bullish on crypto banking.

According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission documents disclosed on January 31, global asset management giant BlackRock (BlackRock) has increased its stake in encryption-friendly bank Silvergate Bank, and its current shareholding ratio has reached 7.2%.

According to relevant documents, BlackRock holds 2,285,197 shares of Silvergate Bank, and has been increasing its holdings in the past two years. The volume increased to 1,871,537 shares (accounting for 6.30%).

According to previous news, Silvergate laid off 40% of its employees in early January, and then announced on January 27 that it would suspend dividend payments to shareholders to maintain liquidity.

Vetle Lunde, a senior analyst at Arcane Research, wrote in a report that the cryptocurrency market may be too optimistic about the Fed’s policy shift quickly, and many headwinds, such as slowing upward momentum, strong technical resistance and the Fed’s hawkish attitude, may It will make the market’s performance in February unsatisfactory.

An analysis of recent Bitcoin volatility suggests that the massive Bitcoin rally sparked by the previous Federal Reserve meeting is fading. But the agency also doesn’t deny the relatively optimistic possibility.

In addition, Jean-Marie Mignetti, CEO of Coinshares International, said that the Federal Reserve’s reduction in interest rate hikes in December last year was the macro driver of the surge in cryptocurrency earnings in January, and the market has slowly digested the impact of the collapse of the FTX exchange. Panic.

The Bitcoin HODL Waves metric, created by Unchain Capital and tracked by Glassnode, shows a 17% increase in the percentage of unspent transaction outputs (UTXO) over five years over the past six months. The HODL Waves metric tracks the UTXO age distribution.

As a result, the percentage of UTXOs older than 5 years has risen sharply recently, indicating the aging of unspent outputs, suggesting that some investors are still holding on to their holdings during the market downturn.

Joe Brunett, chief analyst at Blockware Solutions, responded to Capriole CEO Charles Edwards calling the aging of UTXOs a bullish development, calling the UTXO figures evidence that long-term holders are accumulating Bitcoin at the fastest pace in eight years.

According to a report by Kaiko Research, the Sandbox project will release 12% of the token supply to seed and strategic investors, equivalent to approximately $273 million worth of SAND, and half of this 12% will be given to investors.

SAND is the utility token used on the Sandbox ecosystem as the basis for transactions and interactions. Its price has risen 90 percent since the start of the year and is now trading at $0.74, according to Messari data.

But it’s worth noting that the token is still down 90% from its all-time high of $8 reached in November 2021.

Joey Krug, chief investment officer of cryptocurrency investment company Pantera Capital, said that the company switched from altcoins to ETH last year in an attempt to avoid further shrinkage of investment, but has now begun to switch back to some altcoins because they believe that these altcoins will run in the future cycle. Win ETH, which is also the first time the company has switched from Bitcoin and Ethereum to altcoins since the spring.

The cryptocurrency market rebounded modestly in January this year after last year’s slump. Pantera’s Liquid Token Fund fell 80% in 2022. In an investor conference call last week, Pantera Capital said that the Liquid Token Fund rebounded this month and has risen about 47%.

By comparison, the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index fund rose nearly 40% in January.