ICYMI - Last week in crypto: Clash of the titans ⚔️🤺
A battle of opinions raged in the web3 space
It really was a clash of titans in the crypto space this past week as we saw top players go head to head. With MicroStrategy's CEO being critical over Vitalik Buterin's Ethereum, Zuckerberg expressed his confidence on building the "metaverse" despite $2.8 bn Q2 losses. However, Solana has launched a physical store dubbed "Solana Spaces" and Yuga Labs adds 5% royalty fee on its afore-acquired NFT collection "Meebits".
Michael Saylor Attacks Ethereum, claims Bitcoin Cash Was a 'Horrific Mistake'
Michael Saylor has shared criticisms against Ether and Bitcoin Cash, challenging their economic, technical, and ethical viability.
MicroStrategy's CEO, speaking at the Blockchain Economy Istanbul Summit, cited words by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who recently stated that the blockchain is around 40% complete.
Saylor stated that he would have to wait till the protocol is finished before deciding on its value as an institutional investor; nevertheless, Ethereum might not be finished or stable for three years.
Furthermore, Saylor said that Bitcoin's monetary policy has been determined for the next 1,000 years, whereas Ethereum's monetary policy may alter over the course of the next three years.
Saylor stated that, from a technical view, he would need to observe a finalized protocol operate for five to 10 years without being hacked, adding:
"Every time you do a big upgrade you introduce new attack surfaces."
Importantly, he would want to make sure that no one could alter the Ethereum protocol, and investors needed to be confident that their holdings wouldn't be diminished.
Saylor notes that he applies this philosophy to many other assets, which is why he doesn't own cryptocurrency like Dogecoin or equities in certain significant tech firms.
The businessman said it was a "horrific mistake" to move forward with a hard fork that quadrupled block sizes since it reduces mining incentives. He saved his strongest criticism for Bitcoin Cash. Overall, he claims that BCH has been a "failure" during the last five years.
Zuckerberg unbothered about $2.8B metaverse division loss in Q2
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been investing in the technology, which he calls a "huge opportunity," despite Reality Labs, Meta's section for virtual reality (VR) and the metaverse, reporting its eighth consecutive quarter of losses.
To capitalize on the "huge opportunity" worth "hundreds of billions of dollars," VR applications and Meta's metaverse platform need to be developed for at least a few more years, according to Zuckerberg, who recognized this during the company's Q2 earnings call on Wednesday. He added:
“The Metaverse is a massive opportunity for a number of reasons. I feel even more strongly now that developing these platforms will unlock hundreds of billions of dollars, if not, trillions over time.”
“This is obviously a very expensive undertaking over the next several years,” Zuckerberg added, “I’m confident that we’re going to be glad that we played an important role in building this.”
In Meta's Q2 financial announcement on Thursday, it was made clear that Reality Labs had been experiencing a prolonged period of operational losses. For divisions in the research and development stage, such losses are common.
In order to integrate Meta users using its numerous social platforms, such as the Metaverse, with the Oculus range of VR headsets, Reality Labs creates VR and augmented reality (AR) applications.
In addition to the losses, Reality Lab's revenue and operating margin have also been heading downward since 2021 and 2020, respectively. The Q2 2022 sales of $11.1 billion and the margin of 29 percent reported were the lowest in the previous seven quarters.
Despite the current financial difficulties, Zuckerberg is optimistic that his business and its subsidiaries will emerge from it as "a stronger and more disciplined corporation."
He credited his company's current investments for enabling it to remain a leader in a sector that might be changing to make room for more metaverse platforms. He attributed his company's confidence to its ability to make these investments.
Vitalik Buterin: Facebook's Metaverse "Will Misfire"
Despite Michael Saylor's critique of Ethereum, its creator, Vitalik Buterin, has shifted his focus to Facebook's quest to create the "metaverse." While the Metaverse remains an undefined concept, the Ethereum developer believes that firms such as Facebook will struggle to build it.
Buterin also raised doubts about any "existing corporate attempts" to construct a Metaverse.
On Twitter early Sunday, the Ethereum developer revealed his thoughts on where the emerging space could be heading, suggesting that organizations attempting to establish the Metaverse are unlikely to succeed. While he believes the Metaverse "will happen," he also believes "none of the existing corporate endeavors to consciously establish the metaverse are going anywhere."
Without a doubt, the most famous corporate actor to demonstrate an interest in the Metaverse to date has been Meta, Facebook's parent company, which rebranded late last year as part of a pivot to embrace the Metaverse. Buterin mentioned Meta in his condemnation of corporate entry into the space. "Anything Facebook develops now will fail," he commented in response to a tweet, saying that Metaverse-focused businesses will fail because "it's just too early to know what people genuinely want."
Experts says massive spike in ETH active addresses still unexplainable
Many people have made assumptions concerning the reason for the sudden, significant increase in active addresses on the Ethereum network.
Santiment, an on-chain analytics company, said it is still looking into what caused the unexpected increase in active Ether (ETH) addresses, which has outpaced the previous ATH by a staggering 48 percent.
The analytics company tweeted last Wednesday that the number of daily active Ethereum addresses had suddenly increased to 1.06 million, smashing the previous high of 718,000 established back in 2018.
Santiment claims that its team is still looking into what caused the rise, nevertheless. Tim Beiko, an Ethereum core engineer, was also contacted by Cointelegraph to inquire about the strange activities, but no response was received right away.
Conor Grogan, the head of strategy at Coinbase, tweeted that the rise in activity is due more to a high number of token transfers per unit of gas than to higher adoption.
According to him, the increase in active addresses is the result of more "mundane" send/receive activity, such as "Binance running a maintenance sweep," as opposed to more "productive" activity from decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible coins (NFTs).
Yuga Labs Adds 5% Royalty Fee on Meebits NFT Sales
In a bid to perhaps pay for a new group of builders devoted to the NFT collection, Yuga Labs is imposing a 5 percent royalty fee on Meebits sold on secondary marketplaces.
According to Yuga Labs, including the royalty fee will aid in its aims to uphold the essential values of the Meebits community.
A 5 percent royalty fee was implemented on Meebits sales with immediate effect, the business stated in a tweet on Thursday.
The company claimed to have assembled a group of "bright creative minds and some die-hard Meebits community members" who will now aid in the project's development. Though Yuga didn’t clarify exactly how the funds would be used, it implied that the revenue produced from royalties would go into development to “keep [the] Meeb party going.”
The Meebits NFT line and its renowned precursor, CryptoPunks, were acquired by Yuga in March for an unknown fee from Larva Labs, a design house. When the agreement was signed, Yuga granted Meebits and CryptoPunks owners complete commercial rights to their NFTs, enabling them to monetize their NFTs and incorporate them into a variety of commercial material.
Following the announcement of the royalty, the admission fee for the Meebits collection, sometimes known as the "floor price" in NFT circles, increased from 4.33 ETH to 5.1 ETH and is currently hovering at 4.94 ETH on OpenSea. The disclosure also caused the trading volume for the collection on the NFT market to soar, from 22.44 ETH on July 27 to 305.37 ETH.
Solana Opens First Physical Store in New York City
Solana has launched the first Web3 physical walk-in store in the real world. Solana Spaces is currently open and operational in New York City's Hudson Yards. The store intends to give a learning experience for newcomers as well as a smooth transition to the Solana blockchain.
The official launch of Solana Spaces' first location, which is located at 20 Hudson Yards in New York City, was announced on July 28. The Solana Foundation and many ecosystem partners have worked together to create the store, which will be open from 10:00 to 20:00 on Monday through Saturday and from 11:00 to 19:00 on Sunday.
The store, which targets those new to blockchain technology, calls itself "the world's first retail [and] instructional space dedicated to Web3." Visitors will have access to training materials, programming services, and experiences based on the Solana on-chain, as well as the chance to win "special incentives" for taking part in actual shop activities.
At Solana Spaces, customers can create their own Solana Phantom wallets in a seed phrase booth. Visitors who complete the instructional courses given on Solana projects can unlock a variety of NFTs and coins, including USDC.
A showcase of Solana's upcoming Saga phone, interactive art pieces, crypto "lifestyle" items like sweatshirts and t-shirts, and a number of the ecosystem's NFT collections will also be available at the store. The shop also promises to switch up the visitor experiences and gives a 50% discount on purchases up to $200 if made using the Solana Pay app.
Solana Spaces will be the first Web3 store in the cryptocurrency industry, which has always preferred digital over physical goods. The company also revealed last month that it would release a smartphone under the Solana brand. Such moves suggest a more comprehensive plan to grow the Solana brand both offline and online.
Thanks for reading and see you next week!!
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