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Going back to basics. Do I really need another picture of an ape? NFT market slumps in August

Going back to basics. Do I really need another picture of an ape? NFT market slumps in August

The article did reflect some of my views but also did not. The core message that I was trying to say is that the NFT market is at the rebuilding stage right now. The previous highs that were in the bull market are in a challenging stage. The prices were unsustainable, and it will continue this way as the macro environment is not looking too optimistic now.

There are many contributing factors to this current state but is this the end of the NFT markets? It is not.

Right now there are more projects in the markets working hard behind the scene working on content, books, music, and better gaming assets and experiences. The speculation market has died down, and this is actually very healthy for all of us to grow.

This is a time to go back to basics. We can look at the 5Ps of marketing- Product, Price, Promotion, Place, and People.

When we are in the bull market, whatever products can sell without doing anything. But in the current times, we need to look at the product. Is it value for money?

Pricing is another factor to look at. PFP in the good times can start at a 1 ETH floor price. We should watch our pricing more carefully right now. Take my NFT book, for example, I choose to launch it on Bybit NFT Marketplace at $2.99, not $29.99. This decision was made after looking at the market and the demand from my communities.

Lastly, I think people and community are what we should be building too. If you do not have this, this is the best time to look into it now. This will also help you to get better results when the market turns better.

Anndy Lian

 

Do I really need another picture of an ape? NFT market slumps in August

The NFT hype from earlier in the year is dying off as the market continues its downward path into the final third of the year. Fire sale coming for apes and cats?

The number of unique non-fungible token (NFT) buyers in August fell below 500,000 for the first time in a year and extended the drop in purchasers to four consecutive months, according to NFT aggregation site CryptoSlam.

Due to an increase in Ethereum prices in early August, total sales rose to US$730 million from July’s US$650 million, but remain a long way short of this year’s January peak of US$4.5 billion.

Yehudah Petscher, NFT relations strategist for CryptoSlam, said the NFT market has caught up with the rest of the world, as traditional markets have been hammered by concerns about rising inflation and interest rates, as well as other global developments.

“People are being much more selective with what they buy and questioning, ‘Do I really want to buy this picture of an ape or a cat for $500?’” Petscher told Forkast in an interview. “You used to give no pause before and you would buy that and you were happy to. And now no, now you need a product. You need something more than just the picture.”

The previous high prices in the NFT market were unsustainable, said Anndy Lian, author of the new book “NFT: From Zero to Hero,” in an email response to questions. The “[NFT] environment is not looking too optimistic,” he said, though added that price retrenchments are also when companies build anew.

The Merge

One event on the horizon could further disrupt the NFT market — Ethereum’s Merge planned for later in September.

The Merge will see the world’s second-largest blockchain, which has a market cap of just under US$200 billion and accounted for almost 70% of all NFT transactions in August, move from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm to proof-of-stake (PoS).

The buzz around the Merge, saw Ethereum prices almost double in a month to reach as high as US$2,022 in mid-August. Ethereum Classic, the original blockchain from which Ethereum was forked, also more than doubled in the same period to a five-month high of US$45.51.

Both have since fallen back, with Ethereum trading at US$1,587 on Friday in Asia and Ethereum Classic at US$32.67.

Petscher said the Merge might “introduce a little chaos” to the market.

As part of the Merge, all NFTs currently hosted on the PoW blockchain must be replicated on the new PoS network to become the “official” versions of the NFTs.

OpenSea, by far the industry’s largest marketplace, announced Thursday that they will only be supporting the PoS versions of NFT collections, but that doesn’t mean a market for the PoW versions won’t emerge, Petscher said.

Deja vu?

This situation is not without precedent. A debate emerged earlier this year surrounding the authenticity of CryptoPunks – one of the market’s leading collections with over US$2 billion in sales – as the current collections are actually re-issues designed to fix a bug in the original run, now known as V1 CryptoPunks.

While the CryptoPunks creators, Lava Labs, originally sought to discredit the V1 collection, collectors pushed back and now V1 CryptoPunks are traded in their own right as a piece of NFT history — though with much smaller total sales of US$75 million.

Aside from the Merge, Petscher said it will take a significant catalyst from outside the NFT industry to shake off the current market slump. One example could be Apple Inc. releasing its long-awaited virtual reality (VR) headset, which Petscher says has huge potential for NFT integration.

“It’s going to require something big like that,” he said. “Unless, of course, the world changes; if  suddenly the war ends and the traditional stock market starts improving, that would lead to the good times again.”

“But I don’t think anybody sees that on the horizon right now.”

 

Source: https://forkast.news/picture-ape-nft-market-slumps-august/

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
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MATIC price prediction: Will going green boost Polygon value?

MATIC price prediction: Will going green boost Polygon value?

On 12 April 2022, Polygon (MATIC) made headlines with the  release of  its “Green Manifesto”, pledging to make its blockchain universe more environmentally friendly.

Polygon’s future plans might seem bright, but its native cryptocurrency, MATIC, has been on a bearish trend since the start of 2022.

After reaching its all-time high on 26 December 2021 at $2.8768 the token has been on a downward trend, losing 50.9% of its value and dropping to $1.41 by 19 April 2022.

Amid plans to go green, can the token surpass its all time high, and what’s in stock for the Polygon crypto price prediction?

What is Polygon crypto?

In the last couple of years, ether (ETH) has become one of the most popular cryptocurrency tokens. It’s the second biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation and the leader in decentralised finance (DeFi) (as of 19 April) due to its compatibility with smart contracts, which make building decentralised applications (dApps) easy.

However, ETH’s growing popularity has also made the blockchain very hard to use amid rising gas fees and excessive traffic. That, in addition to low throughput and no sovereignty has pushed for the creation of Polygon.

Polygon, previously known as Matic Network, is the first easy-to-use platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Founded by Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, Anurag Arjun and Mihailo Bjelic in 2017, it wants to make Ethereum a “full-fledged multi-chain system”.

Using the slogan “built by developers, for developers”, Polygon has managed to combine all existing Ethereum tools with faster and cheaper transactions.

Polygon’s key features include:

  • Fast, cheap and safe transactions on Polygon sidechains that are finalised on the Ethereum mainchain
  • High throughput and multi-chain transactions
  • Smooth user experience
  • Public sidechains that support a number of protocols

So far, Polygon has released three scaling solutions:

  • Polygon PoS – a Layer 2 scaling solution that achieves great transaction speed and cost savings
  • Polygon Hermez – a Layer 2 construction on top of Ethereum that solves its scalability issues
  • Polygon Edge – allows users to run their own blockchain network with customisable features

Three others are in development:

  • Polygon Avail – targets off-chain scaling solutions and standalone chains
  • Polygon Miden – a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum and relies on zero-knowledge technology to merge thousands of Layer 2 transactions into one single ETH transaction, increasing throughput and decreasing transaction fees
  • Polygon Zero – a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum that separates Polygon Zero from other zero-knowledge scaling solutions

Polygon Nightfall, a unique privacy-focused scalable transaction solution, is currently undergoing a testnet. The Enterprise chain is planned.

Since launching, Polygon has allowed users to develop over 10,000 dApps, attracted over 130 million unique users, experienced over 3 million daily transactions and hosted over 3.4 billion transactions.

Polygon’s native cryptocurrency is known as MATIC, an ERC-20 token running on the Ethereum network. The MATIC crypto is used to pay fees on the Polygon network, and for stacking and governance.

A maximum of 10bn MATIC tokens were released. Over 7.8bn tokens are currently in circulation, according to data provided by CoinMarketCap, as of 19 April. MATIC currently has a market capitalisation of over $11bn and is ranked as the 18th most popular token.

Will MATIC go up or down? Technical outlook

The MATIC token launched two years after Polygon was founded through an initial exchange offering (IEO) on the Binance crypto exchange platform.
Since its launch in 2019, the token struggled to speed up, moving sideways and fluctuating between $0.01 and $0.03 for the next two years.

The Polygon cryptocurrency started to gain traction in early February 2021, soaring to new price levels by May that same year. In four weeks between 22 April 2021 and 18 May 2021, the Polygon coin price surged by 602.4%, up from $0.3494 to a then record high of $2.4544.

Polygon to USD chart, 2019 - 2022

Despite its momentary success, the coin dropped to $1.0867 but managed to rebound to $2.2102 by 26 May 2021.

Following May’s highs, the Polygon coin’s price has struggled through a volatile ride. it hit a new record-high of $2.8768 on 26 December 2021, following news that the number one Ethereum App, Uniswap, had launched on Polygon.

Since then, however, the token has been on a bearish trend, with its price losing over half of its value from the record high, dropping to the $1.4222 level, as of 19 April 2022. Between 15 February 2022 and 15 March 2022, the coin lost 25.9% of its value amid general negative market sentiment as tensions started to rise on the Russia-Ukraine border.

Polygon to USD chart, January - April 2022

What is your sentiment on MATIC/USD?

MATIC token technical analysis provided by CoinCodex showed that short-term sentiment for the coin was neutral at the time of writing (19 April), with 14 indicators pointing to ‘sell’ and 13 to ‘buy’.

A relative strength index (RSI) of 35 was neutral, yet close to an oversold territory. A reading of 30 or below would indicate that the asset is becoming undervalued and a trend reversal is likely to occur. The token is trading above its five-and 10-day moving averages, yet close to its R1 resistance level of $1.47.

Is Polygon a good investment?

Some of the biggest Polygon (MATIC) news came as the platform announced that it would be going carbon-negative in 2022, revealing its “Green Manifesto” – a $20m pledge to tackle climate change.
The crypto industry has been heavily criticised for its high electricity consumption by climate change activist groups, including Greenpeace.
By joining the green movement, Polygon is not only aiding the battle against climate change, but has the potential to catch the attention of investors who value the environment, thus building the case for a bullish Polygon MATIC price prediction.

In addition, MATIC was recently listed on Robinhood, the leading retail investment and trading platform. According to Anndy Lian, the BigONE Exchange chair in Asia, that could be an endorsement for the MATIC token.

“With the Robinhood app adding Polygon to their crypto offerings, my guess is that they are also bullish on the token. In addition, the world’s most popular NFT Marketplace, OpenSea, has some of its functions run through Polygon,” Lian told Capital.com.

The expert added that Polygon’s low fees and fast speed are the two key points that are pushing more projects to mitigate the platform.

“On top of this, MATIC made good moves to deep dive into the NFT and gaming sectors. This allows them to scale and gain popularity a lot faster than their peers,” Lian said.

According to Lian, apart from the low fees and fast scalability, the platform is also easy to use and their community and developers are very supportive.

“They are building up their ecosystem by empowering projects to build dApps easily on top of their infrastructure. Their roadmap since 2017 is very clear and this has given them a lot of followers, especially in the South Asia region,” he said.

“Overall, MATIC is an exciting blockchain in the market. The demand of the token will continue to grow as long as ETH 2.0 is still not out.”

MATIC price prediction 2022 – 2025, 2030

Despite recent bearish MATIC token price action, algorithm-based forecasting service Wallet Investor gave a bullish MATIC coin price prediction at the time of writing (19 April).
The site noted that MATIC is “an awesome investment”, adding that it has a long-term earning potential.

Based on its analysis of past price performance, the website expected that the token could cost $2.439 in 2023 and jump to $6.701 by 2027.

DigitalCoinPrice supported the positive MATIC to USD forecast, but projected a much slower pace of growth in the following years, predicting that the token could rise to $1.98 by the end of 2022, $2.50 by the end of 2024 and $3.15 by the end of 2025, surpassing its December 2021 all-time high.

For the end of 2028, the site gave a $4.41 Polygon price target. Its long-term MATIC future price prediction suggested that the cryptocurrency could have the potential to reach $6.89 by 2030.

Note that price predictions can be wrong. Forecasts shouldn’t be used as a substitute for your own research. Always conduct your own due diligence. And never invest or trade money you cannot afford to lose.

Polygon (MATIC) price prediction: The bottom line

The green transition and Robinhood listing appear to be fuelling the bull case for the MATIC coin, in line with the upbeat predictions from algorithm-based forecasting sites.
There are many factors at play for the future of the coin, from the overall macroeconomic environment, acceptance of the crypto markets and the level of adoption. Always remember that your decision to trade should depend on your attitude to risk, your expertise in this market, the spread of your investment portfolio and how comfortable you feel about losing money. Crypto markets are  very volatile and involve high risk. Never invest money that you cannot afford to lose.

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j

Will Meme Coins Keep Going to the Moon?

Will Meme Coins Keep Going to the Moon?

Dogecoin has many attractive aspects, which is no doubt why it has inspired many imitations. Thanks to its notable price increase, with a market capitalization of $7 billion and a huge global following, it has inspired more than 150 meme-themed cryptocurrencies, including Shiba Inu, Baby DogeCoin, Doge Killer, Daddy Doge, DogeCola, etc., hoping to springboard off Dogecoin’s popularity to also make a fortune.

Dogecoin was created as a joke in 2013 by Adobe Product Marketing Manager Jackson Palmer and software engineer Billy Markus to make fun of how people buy cryptocurrencies that they don’t understand. However, the joke sort of backfired as due to the fun and interesting nature of Dogecoin it attracted fans from across the world, who call themselves “Shibes”. More recently, DogeCoin has gathered more attention, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s who in 2019, tweeted that, “Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool.” His follow-up tweets in 2020 only served to inflate the prices of Doge, including in January 2021 when Musk helped send Dogecoin prices up 800%, and into the top ten cryptocurrencies by market value. The most recent Elon Musk inspired token called Flokinomics went up 2,300% in 24 hours.

Is Dogecoin likely to continue to exist?

Despite the early scandals that prompted the founder of Dogecoin to leave the project, self-styled “Shibes” remains loyal to Dogecoin. Since the beginning of 2021, the price of Dogecoin has risen by more than 6,000%, which is jaw-dropping in the ascent of any cryptocurrency, let alone one started for comic effect.

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, a staunch supporter of cryptocurrency, recently stated that he believes Dogecoin can be used as digital payment, mainly because people gradually accept and like it. Specifically, he told US-broadcaster CNBC recently that not only is Dogecoin “a medium that can be used for the acquisition of goods and services,” but that also “the community for doge is the strongest when it comes to using it as a medium of exchange”.

Dogecoin is now available at mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges and can even be used as a payment method in some merchants. Cuban’s basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, is rolling out the coin for payment with the help of BitPay, which is providing it as a payment option for its merchants and consumers.

In addition, the lack of strategic direction that has somehow not hindered Dogecoin’s rise has itself been adjusted recently. While the Dogecoin Foundation was established in 2014, it was dissolved after the two co-founders of Dogecoin left the project. Now in 2021 Dogecoin stated that the foundation would have a new board of directors and hold monthly meetings to help run the project. The Dogecoin Foundation is represented by Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum, as well as Dogecoin co-founder Billy Markus, and a representative of Elon Musk. Eventually, it seems Dogecoin, which has a market value of $40 billion, will have new leadership and better use-cases.

But the outcome of many other meme coins and tokens is still unpredictable. Is there any hope for Shiba Inu or Baby Dogecoin? Will we see a bunch of abandoned “pet” coins becoming bullish again value-wise in the future? However, it is undeniable that a number of factors are causing meme coins to experience a crisis.

Too many samey meme coins

Search for coins containing “shib,” “inu,” “dog” or “cat” on CoinMarketCap to find out how many meme coins are on the market, and you will discover that there are more than 150 such coins. Because none of them has a truly reliable business plan, it is unlikely that any of these meme coins will genuinely replicate the unpredictable success of Dogecoin. On this basis it is almost impossible for investors to determine which meme coins may succeed, which is a key reason why meme coins are no longer popular for investment purposes. Meme coins allow crooks to thrive. Since meme coins do not have any primary value, it is easy for crypto scammers to take advantage of the popularity of Dogecoin to create a brand-new cryptocurrency and carry out some publicity to raise the price and then sell it for a profit. The crazy increase in the price of Dogecoin has also caused investors to be so afraid of missing the next Dogecoin that they invest in new ventures without thoroughly studying the token and its founder. It is even difficult for any exchange to give a precise number of how many meme coins are scams.

Meme coins are not a good long-term investment

Meme coins may generate spectacular short-term gains as people are willing to speculate on the possibility of making money in a short amount of time, thereby pushing prices up.

But I hope that investors will look to invest money in cryptocurrencies that stand a reasonable chance of performing well over time. As a market for investable assets, cryptocurrency is an unpredictable asset class. So, before investing in cryptocurrency please study what real problems the project you want to invest in can solve in the future, who participated in the project, and other factors related to it. In this way, you can better assess the likelihood of their long-term commercial success.

The lack of a trusted leader

Another obstacle to sensible investing is that we often have no way of knowing who the leader of each meme coin project is. Take Shiba Inu, which is currently on a more significant scale than other meme coins apart from Dogecoin. In May 2021, Shiba Inu coin, nicknamed the “Doge Killer”, reached a market cap of $6.6 billion. Its leader is anonymous, which is uncommon for any crypto project apart from the most famous exception to that rule, Bitcoin. In simple terms, before you buy any cryptocurrency, it’s prudent to find out who is behind it, their relevant experience, and whether they have been involved in cryptocurrency scams.

Most meme coins have no practical use

The magical allure of Dogecoin is that it captures people’s hearts, which is very important for a successful meme coin. However, at least until very recently Dogecoin has had no practical use other than being a joke. In contrast, other mainstream cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum which runs DeFi smart contracts, put their energy into blockchain technology development and problem-solving. Despite this, they can learn about the value of community from Dogecoin because although it was created as a joke, it still attracts millions of Shibes.

BigONE Chairman Anndy Lian who was quoted recently said: “Although Dogecoin may still be popular, this does not mean it’s a good idea to speculate on any new cryptocurrency borrowing the name of Dogecoin or Shiba Doge. There are many great cryptocurrency projects born every day, but it is still unclear whether they will succeed or not.”

Dogecoin is very successful now. After its new foundation is established, it may have several use cases developed, such as using Dogecoin as digital payment. However, it’s worth repeating that Dogecoin’s situation is a special case and cannot easily be replicated. It will certainly not make those cryptocurrencies with no practical use a good investment choice. And although many Dogecoin clones have published whitepapers, you will find precious little cryptocurrencies with practical uses apart from the likes of DogeCola which have created their own branded fizzy drink for example.

And yes, despite all that I have said, meme doge coins are still going to the moon.

 

Author: Jenny Zheng, Early crypto advocate | Investor | PR Expert | Cofounder of Blockcast.cc

 

Original Source: https://hackernoon.com/will-meme-coins-keep-going-to-the-moon

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
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