Solana hits all time high: FTX’s NFT marketplace spammed

Transcript

Welcome to The Daily Forkast, September 7th, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News, covering all things blockchain.

Crypto markets are on a roll this week and things look set to get hotter, with Solana hitting an all-time high, Bitcoin becoming legal tender in El Salvador and Cardano about to launch smart contracts. So much to talk about. We’re going to get right to it.

Let’s get you up to speed from Asia to the world.

First up, it’s a busy week already for crypto market news. Tuesday morning Asia time saw Solana hitting an all-time high, with its value tripling over the last three weeks.

Not only that, but ahead of bitcoin becoming legal tender in the country, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced the purchase of a total of 400 bitcoin. That’s around US$21 million worth at current market prices.

Forkast.News Lachlan Keller has more on the market action.

Solana’s historic run has continued to break new ground, according to CoinMarketCap, it gained 22% within 24 hours, hitting $179.32, Thursday lunchtime in Asia.

After breaking into the crypto top 10 in August. It’s now sitting in seventh place, with a market cap of almost US$51 billion.

One expert told Forkast.News, while it’s been performing well, it is difficult to make long term predictions for emerging tokens, but he remains optimistic

“As communities grow, as their use cases grow, and the adoption curve continues. Sure, yeah, this is going to continue for quite some time.”

Caselin also says that while such altcoins may not be Ethereum killers, it’s a reminder that its second-place position in the crypto top 10 cannot be taken for granted.

Meanwhile, though he thinks investors shouldn’t trade bitcoin on the basis of El Salvador adopting it as legal tender on Tuesday, it will be interesting to see which other countries may be said to make similar moves.

“If you’re a country that relies heavily on remittances, for example, El Salvador, but also the Philippines, then this makes sense, right? It makes sense to kind of optimize these deals, these payment rails.”

And of course, we’re also keeping watch on Cardano, the Alonzo upgrade allowing smart contract functionality is due to launch on September 12th.

For Forkast.News, I’m Lachlan Keller.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong based crypto exchange FTX’s newly launched NFT marketplace has suffered a spam attack.

Minting NFTs on the platform was initially free, but when users posted a massive number of fish images shortly after the launch, its CEO tweeted that a one-time US$500 fee would be charged for submissions. However, that minting fee has since been revised to a flat US$10.

So what does this all mean for the next stage of NFTs?

Forkast.News Michelle Lim got to the heart of the matter with FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, This report from Hong Kong.

FTX’s NFT marketplace was set up with the idea of it being open for anyone to list whatever they wanted, with users able to create NFTs cross-chain using both Ethereum and Solana.

However, just an hour after it launched, around 1000 artworks had already been submitted, mainly of fish. It quickly became clear that some limits would have to be set. So, a fee for submitting works was introduced. After initially setting it at $500, it was quickly reduced to just $10 per NFT.

CEO Sam Bankman-Fried told Forkast.News, he’s surprised at the amount of excitement there has been over NFTs, and while he thinks the market will experience a correction, some investors are in it for the long term.

“I don’t think that many of these people are planning to just try and flip it for a profit. And so I think, unlike some speculative bubbles, you know, I think a lot of the people planning to buy these NTFs are just planning to hold them.”

That popularity shows no sign of abating just yet, with Bankman-Fried’s own “Test” NFT selling for over a quarter of a million U.S. dollars.

For Forkast.News, I’m Michelle Lim in Hong Kong.

And finally, today: Tsk, tsk Kim:

One of the world’s biggest influencers has been named and shamed over endorsing crypto speculation.

Kim Kardashian currently has, as you might know, over 250 million followers on her Instagram. And you might remember back in June, she promoted Ethereum Max, a project which had been launched by unknown developers in May.

While she did reveal that the post was an ad, she didn’t have to disclose that the token had only been created a month ago, which it was.

Well, now the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has called her out in a scathing speech. The head of the FCA, Charles Randell, said her post could have achieved the biggest audience reach in history for a financial promotion and accused her of fuelling the quote “delusions of quick riches.”

Randell said that while he cannot say if Ethereum Max is a scam or not, social media influencers are often paid by scammers to help pump and dump new tokens, which are based on speculation. He went on to warn that such speculation may not end well.

Well, you know that Kim Kardashian has already made her money on that deal. Everyone else will have to wait and see if Ethereum Max will do the same for followers who might have followed blindly.

And that’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. For more visit Forkast.News. I’m Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau. Until the next time.