Are NFT marketplaces becoming an open sea for royalties?

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Welcome back to Chain reaction.

PSA: I’ll be at ETH Denver this week, so if you see me, say hi! I have some chain reaction needles on me and the first people to find me will get one. Think of it as a free NFT, but instead of it going into your crypto wallet, it will go into your wallet. Wow!

Anyway, let’s get into the news; oh, and happy march!

February ended as a big month for the NFT market as non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain exceeded $1.5 billion in volume for the first time since May 2022.

NFT marketplace Blur hit an all-time high for monthly volume of $1.12 billion for February, accounting for 74.6% of the total volume across all Ethereum NFT marketplaces, according to data from The Block. (The block’s data aggregation filters out wash trading — when traders buy and sell goods among themselves to artificially inflate volumes and prices.)

By comparison, OpenSea, now the second largest Ethereum NFT marketplace, had $270.11 million in volume for February, the data showed. At its peak, OpenSea had approximately $4.8 billion in monthly volume in January 2022, but has since seen its total transaction volume deflate.

Amidst the recent rally, Blur has won the once-largest NFT marketplace OpenSea in monthly volume for the third consecutive month as the crypto market debates the issue of NFT creator royalties.

“If you look at what’s happened recently with OpenSea and Blur, there’s obviously a concern in general in terms of the market and the royalty battles,” Yat Siu, chairman of Animoca Brands, told TechCrunch. “But the volume as a result of this has increased enormously, which means it has brought back a different kind of excitement into the room.”

More below.

This week in web3

Ethereum NFT Marketplace Passes $1B in Volume for First Time Since May as Creator Royalty War Heats Up (TC+)

The story continues

As mentioned above, the NFT market is heating up again and the rise of Blur in the NFT market has helped to revive a debate about royalties. In previous quarters, OpenSea tried to balance royalties to creators as it held the top position for NFT marketplaces, but Blur’s aggressive stance is causing OpenSea to change tactics. But as massive NFT marketplaces drop fees, this could be a “slippery slope” that hurts creators in the long run, Siu said.

Does web3 need a venture bailout now that AI has all the hype? (TC+)

Shifting investor priorities, more expensive cash and a lack of big deals that were so common during the last startup boom could leave many late-stage web3 companies short of cash. And the clock is ticking. For startups stuck in a now-passé category, it may not feel good to see venture dollars flowing elsewhere, even if such developments in capital flows are normal.

Chainlink’s new platform allows web3 projects to connect to Web 2.0 systems such as AWS and Meta

Chainlink, a web3 services platform, is launching a self-service, serverless platform to help developers connect their decentralized applications (dApps) or smart contracts to any Web 2.0 API, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. This new platform also supports more mainstream programming languages ​​such as JavaScript, allowing developers new to web3 to enter the space. It will also provide integrations to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Meta and others.

The last pod

For last week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Alex Adelman, co-founder and CEO of Lolli. Founded in 2018, Lolli is a bitcoin rewards app that allows people to earn bitcoin or cash back when they shop online or in person at over 10,000 stores such as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Dunkin’, CVS, Costco and so on.

Adelman was previously on the team that built a commerce gateway, Cosmic, which was acquired by PopSugar in 2015, then Ebates and Rakuten in 2017. And like Jacquelyn, Adelman also went to UNC-Chapel Hill — go Tar Heels!

Lolli has grown significantly in recent years, from partnering with less than 1,000 stores to over 10,000 stores to date. Adelman delved into the reward system in the crypto ecosystem and how it has evolved over the years – and what the future holds for Lolli.

We also delved deep into the topic of Bitcoin NFTs and Ordinals, which is the latest craze for the community. We discussed whether Bitcoin NFTs are good for the ecosystem, how the technology can grow in the long term and the possibilities of these digital inscriptions potentially fitting into Lolli’s business model.

Subscribe to Chain reaction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to catch up on the latest episodes, and leave us a review if you like what you hear!

Follow the money

1. China’s regulatory blockchain Conflux raised $10 million in a private token sale

2. Decentralized crypto exchange Mangrove raised $7.4 million in a Series A round

3. Singapore-based digital asset exchange DigiFT raised $10.5 million in a pre-series A round

4. Institutional DeFi-focused asset management platform Hashnote raised $5 million

5. Term Labs raised $2.5 million in a seed round to build safer crypto lending for institutions

This list was compiled using information from Messari as well as TechCrunch’s own reporting.